Tidal reported to have just enough cash to survive for six more months
Fiscal trouble appears to be mounting for Tidal as the subscription based music streaming service is reported to have enough cash to last only six more months.
Tertiary to Spotify and Apple Music, platforms possessive of 60 million and 30 million subscribers respectively, Tidal allegedly only reached the 1 million member mark in September of 2015, according to a tweet from Tidal founder, Jay-Z. Yet as the rapper touted Tidal’s milestone achievement, reports surfaced that the service had amassed just 350,000 subscribers. Six months later in March of 2015, Jay-Z announced that Tidal had charted 3 million users, while the platform only possessed 850,000. Tidal, however, “internally circulated” a total of 1.2 million subscribers. Tidal has not released a subscriber count since.
“We have experienced negative stories about Tidal since its inception and we have done nothing but grow the business each year,” a Tidal spokesperson states, verbally backing the platform that asserts that it will break even “soon,” with expectations to become profitable by mid-2018.
The rumor regarding Tidal’s financial instability arrives in the wake of Sprint’s purchase of a 33% stake in the streaming service in January of 2017. The $200 million dollar Sprint/Tidal deal came shortly after Tidal’s loss of approximately $44 million prior to taxes in 2016. The Sprint arrangement is said to have included a $75 million dollar budget for “exclusive content,” a sizeable sum that should have been sufficient to keep Tidal afloat for an ensuing 12-18 month period. It seems that only time will tell whether Tidal will hold its own, or in the case of SoundCloud, will require an angel investor.
H/T: engadget
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