France-headquartered music streaming service Deezer has reported its Q1 earnings and reiterated its expectation that it will reach positive EBITDA this fiscal year.
The company reported a total of 9.4 million subscribers in Q1, down 5.4% YoY on a like-for-like basis from 10 million in the same quarter a year earlier. Deezer counted 5.3 million direct subscribers to its service, up 3.3% YoY.
In its key market of France, Deezer recorded 3.5 million direct subscribers, up 6.3% YoY, while direct subscriptions in the world outside France fell 2.1% YoY to 1.8 million.
Aside from direct subscriptions, Deezer has also built a user base through partnerships with broadcasters, online marketplaces and other music-related businesses. The company’s “partnerships” segment reported 4.1 million subscribers, down 14.6% YoY.
Deezer attributed the decline to a conversion of promo subscribers to MeLi+ (its partnership in Brazil with Mercado Libre) to premium subscribers “with higher ARPU and margins.”
The company’s consolidated revenue for Q1 2025 came in at EUR €134.0 million, or USD $141.0 million at the average exchange rate for Q1. That’s an increase of 1.1% YoY, or 2.5% YoY at constant currency.
The company’s “direct segment” recorded revenue of €86.6 million ($91.2 million), a slight increase from €86.0 million in the same quarter last year.
The “partnerships” segment brought in €39.2 million ($41.3 million), down 9.4% YoY or down 5.7% YoY at constant currency. The decline in partnership revenue from the conversion of MeLi+ users was partly offset by the ramp-up of Deezer’s partnership with German broadcaster RTL.
The company also noted in its latest earnings statement, issued on Tuesday (April 29), that it had renewed its partnerships with French telcos Orange and Bouygues.
Revenues in the “other” segment jumped 155.0% YoY to €8.3 million ($8.7 million), driven by Deezer’s white-label solutions for hardware and media partners.
The company didn’t provide EBITDA numbers for the quarter but reiterated its earlier guidance that it expects to reach positive EBITDA in the current fiscal year.
In fiscal 2024, Deezer narrowed its EBITDA loss to -€4.0 million (-$4.3 million at the average exchange rate for the year), from -€28.8 million in 2023, and reported a positive EBITDA for H2 2024.
“We started the year with positive momentum, delivering revenue growth in line with our expectations and further increasing our direct subscriber base in France,” Deezer CEO Alexis Lanternier said in a note to investors.
“As previously announced, we are fully focused on executing our new strategic direction, introducing bold and innovative music experiences designed to create long lasting value for fans, artists and our partners,” Lanternier continued.
“New features are already live, with intuitive personalization and universal sharing, setting the tone for what we continue to build — a next level music experience based on the expectations of music fans of today and tomorrow. With confidence, we confirm our 2025 guidance and our objective of reaching profitability this year.”
“We are fully focused on executing our new strategic direction, introducing bold and innovative music experiences designed to create long lasting value for fans, artists and our partners.”
Alexis Lanternier, Deezer
While its growth has lagged that of rivals like Spotify and Apple Music, Deezer has developed a reputation for innovation in the music streaming space. In partnership with Universal Music Group, it launched the industry’s first artist-centric remuneration model in 2023, expanding it through deals with Warner Music Group, Merlin, and Sacem.
It has also been at the forefront of the fight against streaming fraud and junk music files, particularly the AI-generated kind.
Earlier this month, the company reported that it is detecting some 20,000 AI-generated music tracks being uploaded to its platform every day, amounting to 18% of all the tracks uploaded. In January, Deezer filed two patent applications on technologies designed to detect AI-generated music.
In March 2024, the streaming service said it had deleted 26 million “useless” tracks, content that then-CEO Jeronimo Folgueira described as “noise, mono-track albums [albums made of copies of a single track], fake artists and tracks that haven’t been listened to in the past 12 months.”Music ComeOn
