Apple is reportedly in talks with streaming-music service Tidal, which is owned by rap star Jay Z, in a bid to strengthen its music streaming service.
Since Tidal has a strong relationship with artists, the move aims to help Apple in bringing exclusive and early releases from popular artists like Kayne West and Beyonce to its music store.
According to WSJ, the talks are still in their early stages and it might not necessarily result in an acquisition. But Apple has been reportedly clear in its intentions that it wants to offer the best entertainment services to its users.
Rapper Jay Z acquired Tidal from Swedish company Aspiro in March 2015 for $56m. He revamped the music-streaming app by collaborating with popular artists such as Alicia Keys, Calvin Harris, Arcade fire, Chris Martin, Beyonce, Daft Punk, Jack White, J. Cole, Jason Aldean, Kanye West, Deadmau5, Madonna, Nicki Minaj, Rihanna and Usher.
Tidal could collaborate with these stars by offering them ownership rights in exchange for music rights.
And this idea worked for Kanye West, who released his latest album, ‘Life of Pablo’ and Beyonce’s visual album ‘Lemonade’. Tidal is the only service where one can find these albums now.
In terms of the number of paid subscribers, Apple has about 15 million, while Spotify has about 30 million subscribers and over 100 million active listeners. Tidal claims to have about 4.2 million paid subscribers.
With this acquisition, Apple wants to gain an edge over Spotify by taking advantage of Tidal’s exclusive rights to stream songs from artists.
In a bid to strengthen its music offering, Apple acquired Beats streaming service in May 2014 for $3bn from rap star Dr.Dre and Jimmy Iovine.
