Jay Z's music streaming service Tidal has been accused of inflating its user numbers

Tidal, the music streaming service owned by rapper Jay Z and a collection of well-known musicians, has been accused of inflating its user numbers to appear more successful than it actually is.

A report published in Norwegian by the newspaper Dagens Nåringsliv says that Tidal has over-reported its subscriber numbers on at least two occasions.

The report alleges that while Jay Z tweeted in September 2015 that Tidal had "1,000,000 people and counting," his streaming service actually had 830,000 subscribers, according to internal reports.

Dagens Nåringsliv says Tidal's internal report may have even overstated the subscriber number. It says that payments made to record labels at that time indicated that the service had around 350,000 subscribers.

The report also highlights another time when it alleges that Tidal's public user numbers misaligned with its internal figures. It told The Verge on March 30 that it had grown to 3 million paying subscribers, up from 900,000 in June 2015. But Dagens Nåringsliv says that in April, a month after Tidal told The Verge that it had 3 million subscribers, its internal reports showed 1.2 million subscribers. And payments to record labels indicated that it had 850,000 subscribers.

Business Insider was not immediately able to verify the report. Tidal did not immediately respond to a request for comment on this story.