Tidal adds 1.2 million users in one week

Tidal has recently benefited from a surge in new user sign-ups, both paid and free trials - and it’s thanks to two big artists. Both Kanye West (The Life of Pablo) and Beyonce (Lemonade) have released exclusive albums on the service.

Tidal’s subscriber numbers almost doubled upon the release of Kanye’s album, and now the service says it added 1.2 million users, including free trials, in the first week of Lemonade’s release. Tidal’s total number of subscribers now stands at around 4.2 million, which represents a three-fold growth in three months, meaning it’s growing quicker than Spotify and Apple Music combined.

Both Spotify and Apple Music are currently adding around one million paying users a month. Spotify remains top with 30 million users while Apple Music is catching up and currently has 13 million users.

It seems exclusive content is the way forward in the world of music streaming, with Apple Music releasing Drake’s new album a week before it was available on any other service. We’ve yet to see Spotify claim exclusive rights to any content, but looking at the effect it’s having on Tidal and Apple Music, it may want to start investigating.

Source: Digital Music News

Max is a staff writer for What Hi-Fi?'s sister site, TechRadar, in Australia. But being the wonderful English guy he is, he helps out with content across a number of Future sites, including What Hi-Fi?. It wouldn't be his first exposure to the world of all things hi-fi and home cinema, as his first role in technology journalism was with What Hi-Fi? in the UK. Clearly he pined to return after making the move to Australia and the team have welcomed him back with arms wide open.