Chinese media giant Tencent Music rakes in over $1BN from online sales last year
The company sees year on year growth, from both entertainment and music based platforms
Tencent Music Entertainment runs China’s biggest music platforms, QQ Music, Kugou and WeSing, and only face competition from one other platform NetEase — the two giants form the duopoly that currently reign over China’s rapidly growing music market.
It’s the strategic growth of their user base and the evolution of interactivity, and it’s not just music revenue that they’re banking on. Although TME have put an enormous effort into what they call ‘long-form audio’ — podcasts and audiobooks, across it’s platforms, the bulk of the revenue from platform users comes from their apps like WeSing which is an online stage for singing competitions. This ‘social entertainment services sector’ alone generated $2.26bn in 2019.
But that's not any reason to forget how intrinsic the revenue generated last year from music subscribers is, raking in a comfortable $514m according to Music Business Weekly. That figure is for subscriptions only, a total of $1.03bn was generated from streaming and downloads. In terms of user behaviour, the Average Revenue Per Paying User (ARPPU) rose by 8.1% from 2018 to to the end of 2019, approximately $1.33 or 9.3 RMB. Despite the assumingly low spend per user, the sheer size, and further potential, of the market of is where TME and it’s platforms have strengthened their models.
TME also trades on the New York Stock Exchange, generating an operating profit of $664m. As the company’s Chief Strategy Office, Tony Yip, added, “we concluded 2019 with many accomplishments, one of which was our significantly improved promotional capabilities, which not only leverage TME’s own platform but also through cooperation with external channels.
[via Music Business Week, Image via Bloomberg]
