Tencent Music made more than $1 billion from online music last year
The Chinese giant has revealed a phenomenal year of music revenues from 2019 that surpasses a billion dollars.
Tencent Music Entertainment is (you guessed it) the music branch of the massive Chinese conglomerate Tencent. With the release of their full-year update it is clear the companies popularity is extended to their music services which recorded a record year in revenues.
From their newly released reports we know that they made $1.03 billion in total online music revenues. Music streaming subscriptions to services they own like QQ Music, Kugou and Kuwo were worth $514 million in 2019.
In the last quarter of the year, music subscribers paid $160 million to all of Tencent’s music offerings. Their revenue from music subscribers in Q4 2019 was up a whopping 60% from the last quarter of 2018 showing their services are experiencing rapid growth.

Whilst their music services flourish, Tencent Music Entertainment seem to be looking to focus their efforts on other forms of audio – ‘long-form audio’. Much like Spotify, this means a push on podcasts but TME are also looking to the potential of audiobooks on their platforms.
Whilst their music business is booming, the company actually seems to make much more money from ‘social entertainment services’. In fact, they revealed that these services made them $2.62 billion in 2019, over double what their music platforms made.
CEO of Tencent Music, Cussion Pang said:” We are proud to say that our all-rounded services to support original music content have made our indie musician program a powerful platform for talents to demonstrate skillsets and stage their singing careers. Our powerful music content underlies the accelerating growth in online music subscribers on our platform.
“For 2020, we will continue to innovate to bring an even more engaging music experience to the users on our platform, and expand via partnerships with China literature and others into the broader audio entertainment space.”