Regardless of the amount of struggles SoundCloud has faced over the past few months, the platform is standing – but the big question remains: how long will it continue to do so?
New documents filed in August with German regulators that the platform will likely not become profitable until – get this – 2020.
The documents read:
“The Group has made progress in improving their music platform by signing license deals with several large and small record companies, publishers, labels as well as independent artists,” the filing states. “The Group expects to sign up further music companies as well as other rights holders and increase its investment in its music platform. The group has launched a user subscription service in the US and expect to launch of the user subscription service across various geographies, such as the UK, Ireland and France.
“The Group is currently loss making and the Group’s business plan for the next three years forecasts that this will continue for the foreseeable future.”
At this point in time, an acquisition of the platform by another major player in the space may sound like the safest way to save SoundCloud from itself. The French streaming service Deezer, which has a strong presence in Europe and is still working its way into the United States as a dominant platform, has its eye on the prize.
Deezer CEO Hans-Holger Albrecht explained to Reuters that he would be interested in acquiring Soundcloud “at the right price.”
For more details on the filings, you can see the original files shared by Digital Music News here.
