The biggest issue right now is happening in Paris, where a problematic Deezer is trying to go public. As part of its IPO filing, federal law mandates the filing of financial and company data, a move that is exposing some serious issues with the world’s second-largest streaming service. Chief among them is the lack of actual ‘subscribers’: according to IPO filings, roughly half of Deezer’s claimed 6.34 million subscribers haven’t even accessed a single song in the last month, while only 1.54 million are paying full fare. “This could be ugly,” one major label executive observed.
Source: Wall Street Is Totally Unimpressed With Streaming MusicDigital Music News