Photo Credit: Qobuz
Qobuz is touting its ARPU and average royalty rates, which are said to be better than those of the competition. But can the platform leverage its niche offering to take on top players like Spotify?
The HD-audio streaming service revealed the figures in a blog post, describing the public disclosure as “a first in the music streaming industry.” According to Xandrie-owned Qobuz, the financial details come from “an independent audit” and pertain to the 12 months ended March 31st, 2024.
During that period, Qobuz, which doesn’t have an ad-supported tier and also deals in permanent downloads, is said to have achieved annual ARPU of $121.13.
Among other things, the sum’s substantially larger than the (average) annual ARPU of $22.38 that Qobuz identified for all its competitors. The smaller total presumably reflects both paid and ad-supported listening across a variety of on-demand platforms; for reference, Spotify pointed to annual ARPU of about $61 for Premium in 2024.
Unsurprisingly, then, Qobuz’s average per-stream royalty rate was for multiple reasons higher than competing services’ rates. At over a “penny per stream,” this fiscal-year figure came out to $0.01873, Qobuz indicated.
(Given the recently discussed disconnect between streaming’s payouts and the compensation that actually arrives in music professionals’ pockets, Qobuz went ahead and emphasized the importance of contractual terms here. Meanwhile, “a leading international firm” is said to have “reviewed” the per-stream average.)
“Although numerous reports highlight our payout rates as among the highest in the industry,” weighed in Qobuz deputy CEO Georges Fornay, “no streaming service had officially disclosed its rates until now. … This unprecedented move in our industry is a necessary first step toward promoting a fairer and more sustainable streaming model.
“Choosing Qobuz means taking concrete action for fairer compensation for all artists and supporting musical diversity, values that our customers cherish,” concluded Fornay, who’s been with the company for over six years.
As initially mentioned, it remains to be seen whether Qobuz can scale its “more sustainable streaming model” to challenge the likes of Spotify and Apple Music.
On one hand, against the backdrop of a major “Streaming 2.0” push, there’s inherent appeal to Qobuz’s described model. On the other hand, from a subscribership perspective, the service is lagging far behind competitors large and small in the U.S., DMN Pro market-share data shows.
However, Qobuz isn’t without unique advantages that could prove useful in the quest for streaming supremacy. Most immediately, these high points include HD audio, which, a multitude of rumors later, still hasn’t arrived on Spotify.
Additionally, music is front and center on Qobuz – a refreshing contrast to the increasingly podcast-, audiobook-, and video-inundated libraries of certain competitors. And byproducts of the platform’s comparatively small reach may be paying dividends; the service doesn’t look to be drowning in a seemingly endless sea of AI-generated “songs.”
Content shared from www.digitalmusicnews.com.