Tidal has hit a recorded 3 million subscribers, which doesn’t even include trial users. The news comes a day before Tidal’s one year anniversary.
Of those 3 million subscribers, around half of them are paying $19.99 for the Hi-Fi tier as opposed to $9.99 for the basic tier, at least according to Billboard.
That suggests a premium crowd, and 3 million active paying users is a major milestone for the service. In September of last year, the service celebrated hitting 1 million subscribers, yet 6 months later that figure has tripled. Tidal has also improved its catalog of songs, and now boasts more than 40 million tracks.
+ Which Is the Best Streaming Music Service?
There’s little doubt that streaming exclusives like Kanye West’s The Life of Pablo had a positive impact on subscriber numbers. Indeed, many have presumed that Kanye single-handedly doubled the number of Tidal subscribers. Though the service has some way to go to match giants like Spotify (30 million subscribers) and Apple Music (11 million), Tidal has come a long way from its niche Norwegian roots.
Equally impressive is that Tidal has been growing significantly, despite a head-to-head content with powerhouse Apple Music. Apple entered the streaming market last July, swiping up over 11 million subscribers within approximately 9 months. But Tidal is rallying higher-end audiophiles, not to mention the support of artists themselves.
Aside from the rising subscriber numbers, Tidal has also finally released streaming numbers for Kanye’s The Life of Pablo (earlier, the service withheld streaming numbers from Nielsen Music for unknown reasons). The stats? Tidal said Kanye’s album was streamed over 250 million times in 10 days.
Something tells me that that is not 250M complete album streams….
Yeah, I bet it’s more like 250M combined streams for all tracks on the album.
It can be difficult to parse through these numbers. In the streaming context, we’re just relying on what these companies announced. Spotify says 30 million, Apple says 11 mm, Tidal says 3 mm. It takes something like an IPO to blow the lid off some of these claims (or in fairness, verify them)
But come on – with 3m users that means each user streamed on average 5 Pablo track every day for 10 days.
Seems a bit implaussible.
How lovely! Too bad Tidal donated 6 million new subscribers to the Pirate Bay!
So there’s that.
Dear Jay Z,
Time to STOP all inclusive subscription streaming BULLSHIT and use your political power for enactment of new FAIR USE ACT! Next day music will be in virtual walls and we will be able to convert over 100,000 global radio stations and few over glorified streamers to $100B music store! AGAIN stop the bullcrap.
well, at least kayne will get paid for his streams. unlike the lesser known artists. they owe me for about 16k streams over several months. they claim nobody streamed my catalog but i had been averaging about 4,200 streams per month since they went live and then all of a sudden, i was getting 1-5 streams per month from august – nov. i find it VERY hard to believe that it would just dramatically drop off like that at the start of a new month…
3 million bot subscribers, maybe.
Great! So now will they start paying artists?