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Streaming music service Deezer says it has more than doubled its number of paying subscribers to five million in the last year, just 1m less than rival Spotify.
The milestone was announced at an event in London, where Deezer also revealed that it has 12 million monthly active users, a catalogue of 30m tracks available to stream, and partnerships with 25 mobile operators and ISPs around the world.
"We multiplied our subscriber base by 2.5 in one year. Nobody else can do this, and we did it outside the US, so it's a very strong footprint," said Deezer chief executive Axel Dauchez, referring to the fact that while Deezer is available in more than 180 countries, the US is not one of them.
Deezer's growth is being fuelled by those telco deals, particularly where the cost of subscribing to its service is bundled into people's monthly mobile contracts. However, that also means it is unclear how many of the 5 million subscribers are actively using Deezer, as opposed to simply having it available as part of their tariff.
Dauchez unveiled two new features for Deezer at the event: one called Hear This that aims to provide more relevant music recommendations for users, and a desktop application for Mac computers that integrates people's iTunes music collections with the streaming service.
Hear This will recommend albums, artists and playlists based on a mixture of algorithms and humans – analysis of people's listening habits and picks from Deezer's 50-strong team of editorial staff, respectively. It's Deezer's equivalent of Spotify's Discover tab, which launched in May this year.
"Discovery is a critical factor which makes the link between the music creation and the listeners. And, more than that, discovery is critical for the people themselves. If you always listen to the same tracks, it maybe gives you short-term satisfaction, but it does not build your musical identity," said Dauchez.
"Currently, the [streaming] category is pretty poor about that. When you look at what is in the market today, of course there is recommendations and so on, but ... Sometimes there is a reason to try, very rarely is there a reason to love. We need to build a step-change in our abilities to push the people to try and to discover new things."
Hear This will be available in Deezer's iOS and Android apps as well as on its website, with Dauchez announcing that 75% of Deezer streams are delivered to mobile devices.
The new Mac desktop app, meanwhile, synchronises people's iTunes collections with Deezer's wider catalogue, making files available across different devices, including tablets and smartphones. "This is becoming the Dropbox of music," said Dauchez, while warning that the application is currently a restricted beta while Deezer fixes some remaining bugs.
Deezer is hoping that the new discovery feature and desktop app will persuade more music fans to switch from downloads to streaming, while also helping Deezer grow amid strong competition from Spotify, Rdio and new services from Google, Apple and headphones maker Beats.
Spotify has 24 million active users and 6 million paying subscribers, although the company hasn't provided an update on those figures since March. Meanwhile, Apple's iTunes Radio – which is a personalised radio service rather than a full on-demand streaming service – attracted 20 million users in its first month.
"We need to speed up, because the CD business is not so strong, even the download business is not so strong, so we need to speed up to make the global music market grow," said Dauchez. "We made the decision to lead the charge for innovation, not for the sake of innovation, but for music lovers."
He also predicted that streaming will continue to grow at the expense of music download sales. "I think that the ownership of a file pretending to be the same as the ownership of a CD was the wrong statement. It meant something to own vinyl, to own a CD. It doesn’t mean anything to own a file," he said.
"For me the download is a transition technology. The transition for where a while, you took the physical world and replicated it in a digital product. But nobody feels that the ownership of a file means something. For me, the download will decrease... We are moving towards a streaming world."
Dauchez also suggested that better discovery features may help to win over musicians who are concerned about streaming's impact on artists, following recent criticism of Spotify – and by extension streaming business models – by Thom Yorke and David Byrne.
"Discovery is definitely the most important thing for artists, again if you always listen to what you knew before, you won’t discover artists," said Dauchez. "Discovery is a key asset to convince the artists to move to streaming."
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