At 4:00 p.m. (2:00 p.m. GMT), Deezer shares fell 26.94% to 6.21 euros, against 8.50 euros for its opening price, on the Paris Stock Exchange, down 2.27% .

Contacted by AFP, Deezer declined to comment.

Spotify's French competitor made its debut on the Paris Stock Exchange on Tuesday morning, minutes after its boss rang the bell to open the market, alongside Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire.

For Dôm Finance equity manager Valentin Bulle, this fall is not "shocking".

Pierre Michaud, portfolio manager of Monocle, recalls that in the same sector "Spotify's market capitalization has been cut by three in a year and a half".

The Swedish giant's share value has even lost 60% since the start of the year, but more broadly, the entire technology sector is plummeting;

the American reference index, the Nasdaq, for example, shows a fall of not far from 30%.

"Deezer is coming at a time when capitalizations are rationalizing", it is therefore normal for the title to suffer "a discount" and in a way catch up with the losses of the last few months in one fell swoop, believes Pierre Michaud.

"Significant volatility was expected during the first days of trading", underlines a source close to Deezer, citing in particular among the reasons "a flow of limited buyers" against "a large flow of sellers", some of whom are looking for liquidity. and ready "to sell at a low price given the very low entry price".

– Second attempt –

A few days earlier, Jeronimo Folgueira, boss of Deezer, had pointed out to AFP that for this "second attempt" on the stock market, "the situation was different from what it was in 2015", with a market for "music streaming really established".

To succeed this time, the main shareholders of Deezer have chosen a less risky introduction system, via a Spac, an investment vehicle.

Spac I2PO, founded by the family of French billionaire François Pinault, French businessman Matthieu Pigasse and former WarnerMedia executive Iris Knobloch, has raised funds on the stock market to facilitate the listing of Deezer and has already raised 143 millions of euros.

Launched in 2007, the French subscription music listening service claims nearly 30% of the market in France, but its 9.6 million subscribers represent only 2% of the global music streaming market, far behind the leader Spotify ( 31% market share), Apple, Amazon and Tencent, according to MIDiA.

The strategy of Deezer, which wants to more than double its revenues by 2025, is to bet on music, its universe and its technology, unlike Spotify which multiplies the launches of podcasts or Amazon which focuses on audio books.

To take advantage of the rapid growth of the global streaming market (+26.4% users in one year in the second half of 2021), Deezer intends to join forces with players already established in several key markets: Orange operators in France and Tim in Brazil, or the RTL group in Germany.

"Our intention is to find partners with whom we can enter new markets, because we have an extremely competitive product and, with the right distribution, we know that we can conquer market share and compete with the big players", detailed Jeronimo Folgueira.

Jeronimo Folgueira, CEO of Deezer, in Paris on July 1, 2022 JOEL SAGET AFP

If the company Believe (accompaniment of artists and independent labels), had disappointed by raising only 300 million euros during its introduction in June 2021, Banijay (television) and Betclic (online sports betting) have succeeded in their entry. on the stock exchange on Friday in Amsterdam.

© 2022 AFP