At the end of the 20th century, as digital music was first becoming a thing, Winamp was must-have software for many people. The audio player, which famously featured a llama mascot and sounds of a bleating llama when you started it up, has never completely gone away, but it has long since been overshadowed by embedded media players from Microsoft, Apple, and other companies.
Now, Winamp is looking to reclaim some of its former relevance, announcing a partnership with Paris-based Deezer to relaunch as a subscription-based streaming service in the first half of next year. The company says it hopes the move will reinvent and reinvigorate the brand.
It’s a notable change for Winamp, which peaked in relevance in the era of MP3s and other downloadable digital music files. While you can still buy those from sites like Apple Music and Amazon, a significantly larger audience now opts for streaming services, which offer vast catalogs of music for the price of roughly eight songs.
As Winamp pivots, it will use Deezer’s white-label streaming technology and music catalog under the better-known Winamp name. Company officials say they also plan to offer options beyond music, including internet radio stations, podcasts, personal cloud-based collections, and other audio sources. Users will be able to combine streaming options with their local music libraries.
Missing from the announcement, however, is what Winamp plans to charge for the service.
In keeping with its history, Winamp will continue to let users customize its interface. The company also says it plans to introduce new social capabilities and new ways to discover, organize, and enjoy music.
The new Winamp will not replace the existing tool. Initially, at least, the two will remain separate options, both available for download.
Mutual benefits
Winamp might be looking to raise its profile with the new offering, but Deezer is hoping for a boost as well. As larger streaming services gain subscribers, Deezer’s numbers have slipped. In the first half of 2026, the company’s subscriber base fell 3.5%, from 9.2 million to 8.9 million. Subscribers from partnerships were down 20% from the year prior, to 3.1 million.
The company holds just a small share of the overall streaming market, accounting for 1.3% of global music streaming subscribers. Spotify, by comparison, holds more than 31%.
Like many other streaming services, Deezer is finding itself flooded with AI-generated uploads, which most listeners say they are not interested in. In April, the company announced that AI music represented 44% of all newly uploaded music, totaling nearly 75,000 tracks per day. The majority—85%—are demonetized by the platform and removed from recommendations.
Déjà vu
The deal with Deezer isn’t the first time Winamp has announced plans to reposition itself as a streaming service.
In 2018, the company announced it would introduce a “completely new version” the following year that included podcasts, streaming radio stations, and cloud-based music.
“People want one single experience,” Alexandre Saboundjian, the Brussels-based CEO of Radionomy, which owned Winamp and has since been renamed Winamp Group, told TechCrunch back then. “I think Winamp is the perfect player to bring that to everybody. And we want people to have it on every device.”
Nothing substantive came of that promise, however, in part because of the less-than-favorable economics of streaming services at the time.
“The streaming platform is already a field with a lot of competition, and all these companies were not really in a healthy situation when we talk about finance,” Saboundjian told Fast Company in 2023.
Things have changed in the past three years, though. Spotify has more than 300 million premium subscribers and recently reported net income of 545 million euros ($624 million) for the second quarter of 2026.
Winamp, meanwhile, is still used by 40 million people worldwide, and the company hopes a notable percentage of them will give the subscription service a try.
“Winamp has always been about giving users the freedom to experience music their own way,” Saboundjian said in a statement. “Twenty-five years ago we changed the way people listened to digital music, and we believe the time has come to challenge the listening experience once again.”