Photo Credit: Qobuz

Qobuz is rapidly becoming a global player alongside the music streaming giants in a major success story for the independent French company.

Qobuz, the high-res streamer founded in 2007, started out as a niche platform prized by audiophiles, but has rapidly ascended as a global player among the music streaming giants. That’s especially evident as more subscribers flee the big streamers and their bloated bundling for a music-focused streaming experience.

Since 2015, Qobuz has been owned by a private, primarily French, family-owned group. Ten years later, as the global recorded music market reached $31.7 billion, streaming accounted for 69.6% of total revenues and continues to drive the sector’s growth. Qobuz saw 45.7% revenue growth that same year—more than five times the market rate, and now has 1.2 million monthly active users.

A Qobuz subscriber generates an average annual revenue of $135.90, compared to $20.74 for the market average. These numbers confirm the strength of an independent model built on the quality of its offering and the engagement of its subscribers, rather than on volume.

80% of Qobuz’s revenue is generated from international markets. The United States is Qobuz’s largest market, ahead of France, and the streamer is present in 26 countries, including Japan, since October 2024.

“Since the acquisition in 2015, we have chosen a structured, coherent path forward: a differentiation strategy, disciplined execution, and fully committed teams. No dispersion, no public funding. This consistency is what is delivering strong, sustainable growth today,” said Georges Fornay, Deputy CEO, Qobuz.

In a sector dominated by major tech companies with considerable resources, Qobuz has built its position by staying true to its founding vision: respect for music, for the artists who create it, and for the people who listen to it.

That has translated into structural choices that have remained consistent for the company, including an exclusively paid subscription model with no in-platform advertising; high-resolution audio quality, faithful to the original recording; and 100% human-curated selection.

The drastic increase in AI-generated content poses a direct threat to artists and rights holders: diluted revenue, polluted catalogs, and the devaluation of music as an art form. Qobuz’s AI Charter, published in February, outlines how Qobuz approaches AI through three key areas: 100% human editorial selection, personalized recommendations, and an AI content identification system.

Qobuz remains the only platform combining streaming and a la carte hi-res downloads, in addition to editorial written by a team of journalists and music experts. 100% of the employees are shareholders, participating in the company’s success.

“Our conviction has never changed: music at the heart of everything, by humans, for humans. That is what drives every decision at Qobuz, and our results show that this conviction is also a viable business model,” said Fornay. “Music streaming is a vast market. We have chosen to build our place within it on our own terms: premium, independent, in service of artists and music lovers. That journey is built to last.”

In March 2025, Qobuz became the first and only music streaming platform to officially disclose its average per-stream royalty rate, confirmed by a leading independent auditing firm. Concretely, 1,000 plays on Qobuz generate an average of $18.73 paid to labels and publishers, who then compensate artists under the terms of their contracts.