Facebook to step into music streaming market

During the past few years, the online music industry has been gaining momentum and this can be largely attributed to streaming.  In fact, streaming has a big growth potential ahead of it. According to the Global Industry Analysts, the global market for music streaming is expected to reach $9.7 billion by 2022, mainly due to the new era of streaming media delivery. And now the social media behemoth Facebook (FB) is attempting to carve out a niche for itself in the streaming industry.

Facebook recently inked a deal with a pan-European licensing hub ‘ICE’. This is the first time Facebook has partnered with an online music licensing firm. This deal allows Mark Zuckerberg’s company to gain online music licensing for almost 300,000 rights holders, through 160 territories. As per the agreement, copyrighted music works from ICE can be streamed on Facebook, Oculus, Instagram, and Messenger.

This deal with ICE marks Facebook’s progress towards global music initiative. Prior to this, the social networking company had signed licensing deals with Universal Music Group and few other companies.

Despite the popularity, it is hard to survive in the music streaming industry due to the mounting competition. That’s why top players like Spotify failed to turn to profit till date. The other big players in this industry are Apple, Amazon, and Pandora. But Facebook can take the risk because of its huge user base. In the last year’s fourth quarter, the company reported having close to 2.13 billion monthly active users. Time alone will tell whether Facebook’s entry into the music industry is a smart move or not and its success in gaining traction and beating other existing major players.