Tidal may have a new owner, nearly. Jay-Z’s investment vehicle ‘Project Panther Bidco’ has offered $56m to buy the parent of Tidal, Aspiro. The board of Aspiro has recommended shareholders accept the offer. Aspiro may be getting nervous, their annual report confesses a lack of funding for the year ahead; Tidal has just reported 12,00 customers to the lossless music streaming service and its sister in Scandinavia, WiMP, has 500,000 subscribers.
Notwithstanding these changes Tidal has this week announced it will launch to 22 more countries; Austria, Czech Republic, Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, France, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Norway, Portugal, Romania, Switzerland, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden, South Africa and Turkey.
Including the US, Canada and UK and other previously launched markets Tidal will be available in 30 countries. Additionally, the CEO is saying that Tidal will increase the number of audio partners in addition to the likes of Sonos, Linn and Bluesound.
“We continue to accelerate our expansion, as demand for our product keeps rising,” said Tidal CEO Andy Chen. “Besides directly from consumers, we are also seeing a very strong growth from new home audio partners.” 12 home audio integration partners are already live include Sonos, Bluesound, Linn, Simple Audio, Auralic, Mirage, Squeezebox, Amarra sQ, Mcintosh, Wadia, Electrocompaniet and Meridian. 25 additional services will be adding Tidal integration in the coming months.
Despite this, users of Tidal from integrated ‘audio partners’ is not significant, most listeners are desktop or mobile. To me this seems to counter intuitive, since a high quality music service surely demands a decent home hifi system?
Tidal division of streams in January 2015 is reported as Home Audio Systems 18%, Mobile 42%, Desktop & Web players 39%. However this correspondent wishes Tidal well, especially if they can generate a Naim plug-in (self-interest), the curated music is terrific & Mark Ronson’s playlist is a treat this month, coinciding with his ‘Uptown Special’ release.
Tidal music streaming has more than 25 million music tracks at lossless quality (FLAC/ALAC 44.1kHz / 16 bit – 1411 kbps) and more than 75,000 music videos. There is weekly curated editorial provided by experienced music journalists and industry experts. There are dedicated apps available for iOS and Android phones and tablets and a web player for PC/MAC. You can also follow Tidal on Facebook and Twitter.
