Photo credit: Alice Moore / Unsplash.
Chinese tech giant Tencent, which has already made sizable investments around the globe including Snap and Tesla, this evening announced it has taken a stake in music streaming service Spotify.
In a mutual deal, Tencent and its subsidiary Tencent Music Entertainment will invest in Spotify, while the Swedish music startup will take a stake in Tencent’s music wing. The terms of the deal are not disclosed.
‘Global growth of music streaming’
“Spotify and Tencent Music Entertainment see significant opportunities in the global music streaming market for all our users, artists, music, and business partners,” said Spotify CEO and founder Daniel Ek. “This transaction will allow both companies to benefit from the global growth of music streaming.
Spotify now has 140 million active users – none of which are in China, where the service has yet to launch.
Tencent, best known as the maker of WeChat, has three music streaming services that are popular in China: QQ Music (born out of its first social network), Kugou, and Kuwo. It also runs Joox in a handful of areas outside mainland China. The tech titan says it streams 17 million songs to 600 million active users.
The Spotify-Tencent deal comes amidst growing investment by China’s top tech firms in entertainment, from music to TV shows and cinema.
See more on Tencent’s entertainment empire:
WeChat + Wonder Woman = a new frontier for the Chinese tech titan.
Posted by Tech in Asia on Wednesday, 29 November 2017
Editing by Eva Xiao
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