According to a report by Variety, Samsung has come out to say that it has no plans to purchase Jay Z’s Tidal music service.
“The rumor of Samsung acquiring Tidal is not true,” said Samsung spokesperson, breaking the company’s silence on the matter. This comes after months of reports about conversations between the two companies.
Rumors about Samsung looking to acquire Tidal were first fueled when Tidal owner Jay Z, stopped by Samsung’s campus to meet with the company’s executives last October. The New York Post reported last month that the two parties had picked up talks again.
Jay Z bought Tidal for $56 million over one year ago and ever since the streaming service has struggled with management and marketing issues following the acquisition; it appointed its third CEO in nine months in December, and sacked its COO and CFO earlier this month.
However, in recent months, Tidal has seen solid growth, thanks to a number of high-profile exclusives. Most recently, Kanye West released his new album “The Life of Pablo” exclusively on the service. And in January, Tidal released Rihanna’s “Anti” album days before other services, which led to 1 million users signing up for a trial of the service. Samsung participated in that promotion, leading many to suspect that bigger things were coming for the two companies.
Samsung itself has been struggling for some time to build a music offering that could compete with the likes of Apple Music and Spotify. Two years ago, Samsung launched a Pandora-like streaming service dubbed Milk Music exclusively to users of its devices. But now, all signs point to Milk Music being shuttered in the coming weeks.
