August 2018

Verizon offers Apple Music free for 6 months in US

11/08/2018

Verizon offers Apple Music free for 6 months in US starting on the 16th August for Verizon Unlimited customers. The offer is available to new and current Verizon Unlimited customers and customers will have full access to Apple Music and can either stream their favorite songs over 4G or WiFi, or download for offline playback – all ad-free. Apple Music now has more than 45 million songs which can be accessed via iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, […]

Huawei launches Arabic music streaming service in Middle East

09/08/2018

Huawei launches Arabic music streaming service in Middle East and partners with Rotana Records, Qanawat and Mazzika to provide access to a wide range of local and international music. The ad-free service has been launched in five countries – UAE, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Iraq and Jordan. More countries from the region are expected to be added to that list. Huawei Music Service is pre-installed in all Huawei devices with operating system versions EMUI 5.0, 5.1, […]

Sonos goes public on Nasdaq

05/08/2018

Sonos listed on the Nasdaq (Thursday 2nd August) raising $208 million making it the 2nd-largest consumer discretionary IPO of 2018, the share prospectus initially valuing the company at $1.8 billion. The shares were offered at $15 and after an initial surge followed by profit taking the share price is fluctuating around $20 per share giving the company a market capitalisation (5th August 2018) of just under $1 bn. Sonos files to go public Despite […]

DEEZER raises €160m from private investors

05/08/2018

DEEZER raises €160m from private investors and enters into an exclusive distribution agreement with Rotana to digitally distribute Rotana’s music and video content in the Middle East and North Africa region. Kingdom Holding Company and Rotana, led by Chairman HRH Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal together with Access Industries, Orange and LBO France have invested a total of €160 million in a private share placement which values DEEZER at €1 billion. The new funding will be […]

Fewer Britons are illegally downloading music

03/08/2018

Fewer Britons are illegally downloading music according to a recent YouGov poll. YouGov’s Music Report reveals that one in ten Britons (10%) download music illegally, down from 18% five years ago. This number looks set to decrease. While 63% of those that illegally download music expect to still be doing so in five years, 22% do not. Added to this, 36% say that using unverified sources to access music is becoming more difficult. This decrease […]

Spotify grows users, revenues and losses

02/08/2018

Despite record growth Spotify continues to lose money and is forecast to continue on a losing streak for the next two quarters according to its latest (Q2 2018) financial reports. Spotify grew its user base finishing the quarter with 180 million Monthly Active Users (MAU) and 83 million Premium Subscribers, up 30% and 40% respectively year on year. Revenue for the quarter was €1,273 million, up 26% and 34% year on year for the two […]

News

China’s Tencent Music looks to go public in US

01/08/2018

Hong Kong based Tencent Holdings has submitted a proposal to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange to spin-off its Tencent Music Entertainment Group (Tencent Music) on the New York Stock Exchange. Tencent Music is the leading online music entertainment platform in China and Chinese media sources believe that Tencent Music will be valued at between $29 bn and $31 bn after this flotation. The Initial Public Offering (IPO) is expected to raise up to $4 bn […]