SoundCloud could soon become a part of the Spotify empire with the two streaming services reportedly in talks.
As reported by the Financial Times, Spotify is in ‘advanced talks’ to acquire SoundCloud, which recently launched its own premium streaming service in the form of SoundCloud Go.
Spotify itself is gearing up for its Initial Public Offering, and would benefit from bringing SoundCloud’s 175 million monthly users on-board ahead of the IPO.
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Spotify already has 100 million users worldwide, as well as 40 million paid subscribers, making it the biggest music streaming service in the world.
Its closest rival, Apple Music, only has 17 million paying subscribers, and Spotify has managed to add a further 10 million paid subscriptions since it hit the 30 million mark in March.
SoundCloud, meanwhile, has struggled to grow in the last two years, remaining at the $700 million valuation it was given in 2014.
SoundCloud started as a site where anyone could sign up and upload audio, but recently debuted SoundCloud Go which enabled users to stream tracks from major label artists for a fee.
The paid service has thus far struggled to take off however, making a possible sale to Spotify a great deal for SoundCloud.
If Spotify takes control of the service it would add SoundCloud’s catalogue of 125 million songs and take a competitor out of the market, but beyond that the deal seems somewhat skewed in SoundCloud’s favour.
Stay tuned for the latest.
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Let us know what you think of the potential deal in the comments.
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Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.