Flush with its early success in signing up 200,000 users in the US, Deezer is taking its Deezer Elite hi-res streaming service global. The company announced the news yesterday, including Sonos as its exclusive partner. For now, anyone with a Sonos hi-fi in more than 150 countries where Deezer is live will be able to switch to the FLAC-quality Deezer Elite for no added costs on their monthly subscription.
New users will be able to sign up from 19 March, although pricing has not been confirmed beyond North America boss Tyler Goldman’s expectation that “it will be similar to the US” – where Deezer Elite costs $9.99 a month if people sign up for a year in advance, and $14.99 a month if not. Goldman said that Deezer now has more than 25m tracks in its catalogue available in lossless resolution, but admitted that FLAC may soon be less of a differentiator in itself as more streaming services adopt it. “You can see a longer-term arc in music where Flac may be the common way that files are delivered,” he told the Guardian. “But super-serving this audience will not just about the encode rate. It will be about the other features.”
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