Snapchat has struck another large music partnership, this one with Universal Music Group, bringing the entire catalog from the studio to users of the messaging app.
On Thursday, Snapchat and UMG announced the deal, which expands the soundtrack available in the app that competes with TikTok and other musical social media properties. Snapchat has been trying to elevate its position in the world of music as it becomes an important platform for users to create videos, popular dances, and memes. Snapchat and UMG’s expanded alliance also includes augmented reality, making it easier for people to layer songs into the animated digital filters that adorn selfies.
“When entertainment and social media companies work together, fans are able to creatively build close-knit communities around the artists and the music they love, all while ensuring that artists are fairly compensated for the use of their music,” said Michael Nash, exec VP, digital strategy, UMG, in the announcement.
In October, Snapchat released Sounds, a platform within the app that lets people put music into the videos they share. The Sounds catalog includes clips of songs from many of the top studios, but now will also include the whole UMG catalog that includes artists like Justin Bieber, Nicki Minaj and Queen. On Thursday, Snapchat gave its first usage stats about Sounds videos: There were 521 million videos created since October with Sounds and 31 billion views, Snapchat said. Snapchat has 280 million daily active users, according to its latest financial report from last quarter.
Snapchat has similar partnerships now with most of the major music studios, including MERLIN Members, Sony Music Publishing, Warner Chappell, Kobalt and BMG. Snapchat had already worked with Universal on select projects like album launches, augmented reality Lenses and access to parts of its catalog, but the new multi-year deal makes the musical catalog widely supported on Snapchat. Terms of the deal were not releases.
Snapchat is trying to show how it can be an influence on the music industry much like TikTok, the Chinese-owned app that is famous for launching new artists careers. In the announcement on Thursday, Snapchat highlighted the work of Olivia Rodrigo, one of the hottest new artists from the past year, whose song “Driver’s License” was used in more than 10 million videos garnering 325 million songs.
