Youth power fuels online music growth

Chen added that it won't be easy to continuously increase music payments, which require online platforms to own enough high-quality copyrights. "The copyright war between major platforms in previous years was to retain users."

These platforms should do more to cultivate and promote original music, expand business scope in podcasts and audio books and amplify product lineups, Chen said.

Tencent Music Entertainment Group, a major online music entertainment platform in China, said paying users for its online music services grew 46 percent year-on-year to 51.7 million in the third quarter of this year. The paying ratio was 8.0 percent, up from 7.2 percent in the second quarter.

Its online music subscription revenue from July to September reached 1.46 billion yuan, an increase of 55 percent on a yearly basis.

Cussion Pang, chief executive officer of Tencent Music, said the company has made tremendous efforts to advocate the pay-for-streaming model, cultivate indie musicians as well as promote digital albums and online concerts via TME Live.

"Expansion of our music library and diversification of our content offerings continued, with more video and long-form audio now available. We have enriched online music streaming by adding visual, interactive and social attributes to our products, including offering a whole new level of online concert experiences through TME Live," Pang said.

TME Live has organized nearly 40 live concerts for well-known artists during the COVID-19 outbreak, and designed various services such as VIP package and virtual gifting for users to engage with artists.

The company has also signed licensing deals with world-renowned music labels such as Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group to drive the growth of digital music commercialization in China.

TME has been playing a key role of promoting and legalizing the digital music market of China, and now operates the country's popular and innovative music apps, including QQ Music, Kugou Music, Kuwo Music and WeSing, according to the company.

Cai Xukun, one of the winners of the iQiyi reality show Idol Producer, released his digital album Young on TME's music platforms last year, with sales exceeding 60 million yuan.

According to statistics from market research company iResearch, the revenue of China's digital music market is estimated to hit 13.55 billion yuan in 2020, up 30.5 percent on a yearly basis. This figure is expected to reach 42.57 billion yuan by 2023.

The consultancy said that the revenue is mainly from user payments, advertising and copyright operations. In particular, paid subscriptions for online music streaming are expanding.

China's online music market is booming along with the authority's relentless efforts to combat piracy and protect intellectual property rights in recent years, said Yu Yandi, an analyst at Beijing-based internet consultancy Analysys.

Yu said more Chinese netizens are willing to pay for music content as expenditures for digital songs or albums are much less than purchasing physical records in the past. "The young generation can afford the expenses and some of them even buy annual memberships."

The pandemic has boosted livestreaming performances, which are not limited by time and space, and the cost of watching a paid online concert is much cheaper than offline equivalents, Yu said, adding that music fans can also communicate with their idols through bullet screen, which refers to real-time comments from viewers that fly across the screen while a video is playing.

"Online music streaming service providers should make some innovations in stage design, and make full use of cutting-edge technologies, such as 3D, virtual reality and superfast 5G, to enhance the quality of online livestreaming performances," Yu added.