The French music streaming service Deezer certainly imagined things differently. The Deezer IPO on July 5, 2022 turned out to be a huge flop. On the first day of trading on the Paris stock exchange, the share price fell by a whole 35 percent.
The Deezer IPO in Paris
The French Spotify competitor Deezer launched on 05 July 2022 with its own share on the Paris stock exchange. However, with moderate success. At the beginning, Deezer CEO Jeronimo Folgueira ringed the bell. At his side was Bruno Le Maire, the French Minister of Economy.
After a starting price of 8.50 euros per share, the share price fell to a price of 5.52 euros on the first day of trading. Deezer’s share price fell by around 35 percent, but has since climbed back up to 6.00 euros on Euronext Paris.
It is not possible to say with certainty why the stock market launch flopped so badly. DZ Bank analyst Manuel Mühl sees according to Finanzen.net but the tough competition in the industry as a possible reason. Apple and Amazon, in particular, have other ways to make money besides streaming music. Deezer, on the other hand, focuses solely on streaming music, podcasts or audio books.
The share of the competitor and top dog Spotify from Sweden was apparently inspired by the Deezer flop and climbed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) throughout the day to a best value of the equivalent of about 102 euros.
Deezer with heavy stand
Deezer was founded in France in 2007 and is now available in more than 180 countries. With a catalog of around 90 million music tracks, the music streaming service can take on the big-name competition.
Deezer also has a lot to offer in terms of technology. It was not until February 2022 that the provider adjusted its prices and became the first provider in Germany to exceed the magic threshold of 9.99 euros a month. For 10.99 euros per month, however, the Hi-Fi option for streaming in the high-resolution FLAC format with a resolution of 1,411 kbit/s is already integrated. Competitor TIDAL offers the same quality for 9.99 euros per month.
Nevertheless, according to an analysis by MIDiA Research, Deezer’s global market share is a minuscule two percent, well below competitors such as Amazon Music (13 percent), Apple Music (15 percent) and top dog Spotify with 31 percent market share.
First IPO blasted in 2015
Deezer already planned to go public in 2015. As of Oct. 30, 2015, Deezer shares were supposed to be traded on the Paris Stock Exchange at that time, but shortly before the launch (on Oct. 27), the IPO was called off.
In a terse statement to Wall Street Journal, they blamed the difficult market environment for the aborted IPO. Did not, however, elaborate on what was meant by that.
At the time, it referred to the setback suffered by U.S. online radio operator Pandora, whose shares lost around 36 percent of their value on the first day of trading on the stock exchange. But the wait apparently didn’t pay off, as the first day of trading after Deezer’s IPO in Paris showed.
