European Music Streaming Service Deezer Heads to Asia; Partners With Telco dTac In Thailand

Steve O'Hear

Steve O’Hear is probably best known as a technology journalist, currently at TechCrunch where he focuses mainly on European startups, companies and products. He was previously co-founder and CEO of expertise platform Beepl where he helped the company navigate its first VC round, along with seeing the product through development, private alpha and a high profile public launch. In November... → Learn More

Wednesday, August 15th, 2012
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European music streaming service Deezer is expanding to Asia. It’s announced that it will roll out in Thailand this week, with Singapore and Malaysia to follow shortly. In addition, Indonesia and the Philippines are expected “within the coming weeks”.

Of note, its Thailand launch is in partnership with dTac, one of the region’s leading telecommunications operators. This sees Deezer replicate a model it’s tried elsewhere which has already seen it partner with telcos Orange, T-Mobile and Belgacom in Europe. Competitor Spotify has tried similar telco tie-ups but doesn’t appear to be pursuing these quite so aggressively. It’s also yet to launch in Asia, although the hiring of ex-Googler, Dan Brody, as Spotify’s General Manager Asia-Pacific, nearly a year ago, suggests it still has plans to do so.

Deezer offers more than 18 million tracks for streaming through dedicated apps for iOS, Android, and Blackberry, along with a browser-based version that plays well with laptops and tablets, and support for various wireless Hi-Fi speakers. It also has an open API where developers can build apps based on Deezer’s features.

To state the obvious, the opportunity and challenge in Asia is pretty huge as the music industry struggles to wean users off of music piracy in the region. But conversely, smartphone penetration and high speed broadband availability in some parts of the region is extremely high too. Therefore, the idea of music being accessible anytime and on any device via the cloud is particularly tangible in lots of parts of Asia, as is the appetite.

One thing is clear, too. For a European tech company, Deezer really is thinking global. After today, it now claims a presence in 91 territories worldwide. That said, it’s yet to launch in the U.S., and apparently has no plans to do so.


Company: Deezer
Website: deezer.com
Launch Date: August 2006
Funding: $149M

Deezer is a International leader in the streaming industry. It is a 100% web-based solution, instantly accessible with no need to download any software. This allows consumers to listen to music on any device (smartphones, tablets, TV, Cars…), at any time and anywhere, connected or not. With 18 million licensed tracks, and more than 30.000 SmartRadio channels, Deezer is set to become the number one destination for all music fans. Deezer is simple, intuitive and responds to fans...

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Company: Spotify
Website: spotify.com
Launch Date: 2006
Funding: $183M

Spotify has created a lightweight software application that allows instant listening to specific tracks or albums with virtually no buffering delay. It was launched in the fall of 2008 and had approximately 10 million users by September 2010. Spotify offers streaming music from major and independent record labels including Sony, EMI, Warner Music Group, and Universal. Users download Spotify and then log onto their service enabling the on-demand streaming of music. Music can be browsed by artist, album, record...

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