Interesting news out of France: The market’s No.1 physical music retailer, Fnac, is getting into bed with its No.1 streaming music provider, Deezer.
According to reports out of Paris, Fnac intends to shut down its own attempt at a music streaming platform, Fnac Jukebox, at some point later this year and offer its customers the chance to instead migrate to Deezer.
In what is being dubbed by the two companies “a perennial and exclusive strategic alliance”, Deezer will also be highlighted in more than 400 Fnac stores across France.
The agreement is something of an experiment: it will last for three years, after which – if it’s been a success – Fnac could become a shareholder in Deezer.
In addition to the above, Deezer and Fnac will jointly promoted music events – while the music streamer will recommend concerts to its users where tickets are distributed by Fnac.
Vivendi, the parent of Universal Music Group, is a 15% shareholder in Fnac.
Deezer claims to have 10m active users worldwide.
In 2015, thanks to papers related to an IPO attempt, we learnt that Deezer had 6.3m subscribers – of which it categorised just 3.8m as ‘revenue-generating’.
Len Blavatnik‘s Access Industries is now the majority-shareholder in Deezer, which remains based in Paris.Music Business Worldwide
