As Spotify continues to grow its already-massive subscriber base – last week it announced its highest subscriber net adds since 2020 in Q1 of 2025 – interest in alternative streaming platforms is also on the rise.

As a result of this industry growth, in the first quarter of 2025, Deezer has seen a revenue increase of 1.1% YoY, with Q1 2025 revenue sitting at €134 million.

• READ MORE: “Your subscription goes to the artist you listen to”: Deezer boss explains what it does differently to other streaming platforms

The French streaming service also reveals that its user base now sits at 9.4 million subscribers, with a significant increase in France of 4.5% YoY.

While Spotify remains at the heart of a seemingly perpetual debate surrounding allegedly low artist payouts, Deezer makes a point to assure its users that a larger percentage of their subscription payments go to the artists they listen to.

Back in February, the company’s CEO Alexis Lanternier said users’ subscription payments actually “goes to the artist you listen to”.

“The overwhelming feeling for a lot of people is that their life is more and more dictated by algorithm, and there is this ask that we see from our user base, and especially the young generation, to kind of take back control, understand how the algorithms work and be able to influence it,” he said.

Back in 2023, Deezer announced that it had partnered with Universal to launch an “artist-centric” streaming model, designed to reward artists and de-prioritise non-musical content, like white noise.

“The current music streaming model needs to be re-imagined,” Universal Music Group said at the time. “While streaming has been the most significant technology advancement in music in many years, a flood of uploads with no meaningful engagement, including non-artist noise content, has necessitated reassessment… to foster a thriving music ecosystem.”

The new model doubles the pay per stream for ‘professional artists’ (artists with 1000+ streams per month from at least 500 unique listeners). It also gives the most commonly searched tracks a bonus, putting a premium on tracks people actively hunt down. As a result, it doesn’t just pay the big bucks to tracks amassing more streams due to passive algorithms.

Earlier this year, the platform also implemented an AI detection tool to sideline mass-produced AI-generated music from its algorithmic recommendations. It found that 10% of all tracks submitted to the platform were AI-generated. According to Deezer, it continues to catch roughly 10,000 AI-generated tracks per day.

Learn more about the company’s Q1 2025 performance at the Deezer Newsroom.

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