Deezer cancels IPO

Streaming service Deezer, which was due to float on Friday in Paris, and was looking to raise over 300 million euros (with a one billion euro valuation) to finance new marketing and expansion initiatives in an increasingly competitive marketplace, where the French firm competes head-on with the better financed Spotify and Apple Music, has pulled its IPO. "Market conditions" were blamed for the sudden change in plan. Chairman of the Deezer board, Didier Bench, admitted that the slump in Pandora's share price in the US last week was a particular concern as were Netflix's recent results. 

MBW: DEEZER SCRAPS IPO THAT COULD HAVE RAISED $400M – HERE’S 5 REASONS WHY

Spotify valued at $4 billion as Deezer confirms US plans

After the latest fund raining venture netting US $250 million, the Wall Street journal says Spotify is now valued at $4 billion. US-based Technology Crossover Ventures have led on the latest funding round. Spotify's publicly listed rival Pandora, has a market cap, according to the WSJ, of $5.7 billion. Pandora is bigger than Spotify in terms of customers (over 70 million active users, versus Spotify's 24 million), though its younger rival is operating in many more countries, and actually brought in more revenue last year. Both companies have seen losses widen in 2013. And in related news, one of the founders of Deezer has told news agency AFP that the company will finally arrive in the US market next year.

Tesco out of MP3s, Deezer flat

Tesco has announced that it will close its MP3 download store at the end of this month. The news comes just over two months after the company bought a 91% stake in music streaming service We7 for £10.8 million. And streaming service Deezer has seen flat growth for the last six months with its subscriber base still at 1.5 million, despite a tie up with telco Orange.

Digital Cull Due says Deezer Dude

According to Deezer UK's Managing Director, Mark Foster, there is only "room for three or four" digital music services on the internet, and we'll see a lot close in the next twelve months. Asked which digital services currently out there would most likely survive, Foster told Music Week: "We'll be one of [the ones that survives], no question. Whether we'll be bigger than Spotify, I don't know. There'll inevitably be a shake-out - as with any market where you get a lot of people coming in with great ideas - over the next twelve months, you'll get four or five big players coming out of the pack. Some will fall away. That's market dynamics". Since arriving in the UK in September, Deezer claims to have signed up 1.4 million premium subscribers. Most of those have come through an exclusive deal with Orange to bundle the service in with pay monthly mobile phone contracts though, which means it's not clear how many active users the service actually has.