Last month the world’s #2 music stream service Deezer introduced itself to the US with a new high-fidelity, uncompressed service called Deezer Elite. Now the company is bringing its compressed Premium Plus service stateside.
Like Elite, at launch Premium Plus is tied to specific hardware. The service is only available to users of Bose SoundTouch Wi-Fi music systems, with set-up available through the platform’s app. The Elite service is only available on the Sonos system.
The regular price for Deezer Premium Plus is $9.99/month, which is comparable to Spotify Premium, Beats Music and Rhapsody Premiere. However, Deezer is offering a free 30-day trial, followed by an introductory price of half-off, or $4.99 a month, to current SoundTouch users.
Deezer seems to be taking a slow rollout approach in the US, which likely gives the company an opportunity to ensure reliable and high quality results for its new subscribers, while avoiding the kind of unexpected problems that can arise when facing the onslaught of new customers that can happen when you open up a service to all comers. While Deezer is available in some 182 countries, the US is the most populous. So it makes sense to have a steady, targeted rollout.
Of course, the slow approach is frustrating to music fans who don’t use Sonos or SoundLink. I suppose that Deezer access might be a selling point for those platforms. But, without taking Deezer for a spin, it’s difficult to know if it’s worth making a hardware purchase just to get it, compared to simply subscribing to one of the service’s competitors. For folks who already own a Sonos or SoundTouch device, the equation is simpler.
