Tencent Music Reviews True Q1 as China’s Streaming Market Grows

In 2020, China had the fourth most titillating song streaming market globally, rising 90.7% to $718 million, per IFPI.

Lawful as Western song services are leaping into podcasts, TME is making a laborious push into lengthy-manufacture audio — mainly audiobooks — in what Cussion Pang, chairman of Tencent Music, acknowledged in a mumble is an “evolution into an all-in-one online song and audio entertainment toddle field in China.” TME isn’t turning this conception into extra money right but: common income per subscriber dropped 1.1% to 9.3 yuan ($1.44) from the principle quarter of 2020. Lengthy-manufacture audio does, nonetheless, abolish the song apps stickier by rising engagement: in Q1 2021, the percent of month-to-month active users who listened to lengthy-manufacture audio improved to 20.0%, when compared to 5.5% in Q1 2020 and 15% in Q4 2020.

Moreover on Monday, Tencent Music announced that it renewed a licensing contend with Sony Music Entertainment. Tencent Music’s shares rose 0.6% to $15.30 on the Nasdaq on Monday, giving it a market capitalization of $25.9 billion.

Monetary metrics (twelve months-over-twelve months and sequential month adjustments):

• Total income grew 24.0% to 7.82 billion yuan ($1.19 billion); it fell 6.1% from Q4 2020.   
• Music subscription income grew 40.2% to 1.69 billion yuan ($258 million); it rose 7.0% from 1.58 billion in Q4 2020.
• Working profit grew 11.2% to 1.16 billion yuan ($180.8 million).
• Gain profit to shareholders grew 10.3% to 926 million yuan ($143.8 million).  

 Music listening metrics (twelve months-over-twelve months and sequential month adjustments):      

• Music subscribers grew by 42.6% to 60.9 million twelve months-over-twelve months; they improved 8.8% from 56.0 million in the fourth quarter of 2020.
• Music month-to-month active users (MAU) dropped 6.4% to 615 million twelve months-over-twelve months; it fell 1.1% from 622 million Q4 2020. (A twelve months ago, Tencent Music executives believed that the behavioral adjustments at some level of the pandemic that bumped up Q1 2020 would persist. This doesn’t appear to beget took build as song MAUs beget been lower than a twelve months ago.) 
• Month-to-month song ARPU (common income per user) fell 1.1% to 9.3 yuan ($1.44) twelve months-over-twelve months; it used to be 1.1% lower than Q4 2020.

  Social listening metrics (twelve months-over-twelve months and sequential month adjustments) 

• Social MAUs fell 14.2% to 224 million; they beget been linked to Q4 2020.  
• Social subscribers fell 12.5% to 11.3 million; they grew 4.6% from 10.8 million in Q4 2020.
• Social users’ ARPU grew 35.7% to 149.7 yuan ($23.25) from Q1 2020 — when ARPU fell 12.9% from Q1 2019 due to the COVID-19 outbreak. Q1 2021 ARPU fell 13% from 172.1 yuan ($26.73) in Q4 2020.