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Digital
Spotify’s success is key to Deezer’s, says CFO
By CMU Editorial | Published on Wednesday 13 June 2012
Deezer’s CFO and COO Simon Baldeyrou has said that he sees Spotify’s success as key to his own company’s growth, particularly if it is to follow its rival into the US market at any point in the future. With that in mind, he told Billboard in an interview this week, he sees the Swedish streaming service more as a “partner” than a competitor.
Asked why Deezer (which last year announced plans to launch in more countries than actually exist in the world) had not yet made any plans to enter the American market, Baldeyrou said: “The US is the world’s biggest market, but it is also the most competitive. This is also iTunes’ main market. [And] the price to enter the market is very high. [But] we hope Spotify will manage to evangelise customers on streaming there”.
He added: “Spotify is a direct competitor, but the market is so wide that we see them more as partners [who can] evangelise customers o streaming. We believe our web-based approach is much more flexible though, and belongs to the future of the internet, allowing, for example, people to access their account from any device”.
Despite apparently requiring Spotify to succeed long term in order to assure its own global future, Baldeyrou said that Deezer already has a strong financial base in its home country, France: “Deezer is profitable in France since 2011. We are in an investment phase abroad. We had a €50 million turnover in 2011, against €14 million in 2010, and €6 million in 2009. 80% of our revenue comes from subscription, which is our growth driver, 20% from advertising”.
He also confirmed that tel co Orange has an 11% stake in the company, a deal cut in order to gain access to the ISP and mobile provider’s customers in France.
