On the first day of its release, “Midnights”, which consists of 13 tracks, accumulated sales of nearly 200,000 copies on Tencent’s QQ Music platform.Compared to the starting price of $11.99 on Taylor Swift’s personal online store, the price of RMB 35 ($4.83) is quite attractive. In addition, judging from the sales data of the first release, Chinese consumers are also more and more willing to pay for authentic online music.
In the past, the outside world was always highly prejudiced against the Chinese music market, mainly because online and offline piracy was rampant.
However, as a technology giant, Tencent with a big business has found a good way to attract users to pay.
For example, many QQ Music Green Diamond users have actually signed up for bundled packages that allow them to access additional Tencent products and services at the same time – such as videos, comics, and mall memberships.
In addition, subscribers can gain other value-added experiences on the QQ Music platform, such as high-fidelity streaming, online concert access, and customizable app layouts.
Finally, apart from the highly competitive 35 RMB album pricing of “Midnights”, Swift’s consumer appeal in the domestic fan community is also quite strong.
After all, the Chinese-speaking musicians who have been able to compete with Taylor over the years, only the king represented by Jay Chou will make people willing to spend the same amount.
【Background information】
The good news is that more and more users are paying for Tencent Music products, but the penetration rate is still not very high.
In the second quarter of this year, the app subscribers of the three major music streaming platforms under the Tencent Music Entertainment (TME) group reached 82.7 million, a year-on-year increase of 25%.
But considering the 593 million monthly active users, that means only 14% buy it. This compares to 188 million (43%) of Spotify’s 433 million subscribers in the same period, with premium subscriptions.
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