Apple has no interest in Tidal

"We're not looking to buy any streaming service," Apple executive Jimmy Iovine told the website Buzzfeed in an interview published Thursday. "We're running our own race." In the summer, the Wall Street Journal, among others, had reported talks between Apple and Tidal, citing informed people. Jay Z is trying to make his streaming service more attractive with an exclusive offer of well-known artists such as his wife Beyoncé and is also accepting high costs for this. The market leader in music streaming, where songs are played directly from the network, is Spotify from Sweden. The pioneer of the business model has now reached the 40 million mark for paying subscription customers and recently grew significantly faster than number two Apple Music. Spotify has added around ten million subscription customers since mid-March. Spotify also has a free version and, as of June, more than 100 million active users.

Apple Music, which forgoes an ad-supported free offering, has 17 million subscription customers - two million more than at the start of June - according to data last week. When Apple Music launched in the summer of 2015, some industry observers had expected Apple to quickly roll up the streaming market thanks to its strong position in the download business and its pre-installed music app on the iPhone. In the just-launched new iPhone software iOS 10, Apple also redesigned the music app and now wants to better personalize the suggested playlists, among other things. Music executive and producer Iovine joined Apple with the acquisition of headphone provider Beats, which included a streaming music service. Apple previously focused primarily on selling songs for download. (SDA)