Tencent Music to list shares in US bourse on Dec 12

Tencent Music Entertainment Group, China's largest music-streaming company, is planning to list shares in the United States on December 12, with a valuation between $22 billion and $25 billion, Sina Finance reported on Friday.

The company will launch an international road show at the beginning of December and list shares in US bourse on Dec 12, with a total initial public offering less than $1 billion. It has obtained 10 times subscription intention from institutions, the report said citing people close to the deal.

China's music industry has been developing fast thanks to the government and enterprises' supports and the country has formed an open and free cultural atmosphere and established an industrial ecosystem, said Jonathan Dworkin, senior vice-president of Universal Music, Digital Strategy & Business Development.

China's music market will not only become next global music hub but also an internationalized music market with various advantages such as content originalization, ecologicalization and business model innovation, Dworkin said.

Tencent Music with continuous profit growth is the only tech giant to be listed with non-deficit account, which makes it an important force leading China's music industry transformation and combining music streaming, video content and social media characteristics of Spotify, YouTube and Facebook, Bloomberg reported.

Tencent Music's prospect shows the company's operation revenue increased 92 percent year-on-year to 8.62 billion yuan ($1.24 billion) in first half this year, up from 4.49 billion yuan in the same period last year. With 800 million monthly active users, the company made a profit of 2.11 billion yuan for the first half this year, up 189 percent year-on-year.

Alex Yao, JPMorgan Chase & Co's China Internet research head, said Tencent Music is better at making money from flow than Spotify.

"If you want a singer to not only sell records but also interact with fans at the same time, which company can compete with Tencent Music?" Yao said.

Diversified business model brings various profits making source for Tencent Music and Tencent's efforts to protect copyrights also strengthened its music unit's advantages in providing original music to users.

These efforts include establishing association to promote authentic online music development in January 2015 and buying exclusive copyright from major industrial players such as Universal Music Group, Sony Music and Warner Music Group in 2017, the report said.

Statistics show Chinese consumers listen to 15.4 hours music per week, with 96 percent of them listening to licensed music, 34 percentage points higher than global average, and 89 percent of them listening to licensed audio streaming, according to a consumer insight report by International Federation of the Phonographic Industry.

These indicate a tremendous transition of China's music market which is motivated by stronger consumer consumption ability and an overall recovery of the whole market.