We reported in May that NetEase was aiming to spin off its music streaming subsidiary, Cloud Village – which runs China’s second-biggest music streaming platform NetEase Cloud Music – and it has now secured approval from the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. The company aims to raise about $1bn in its initial public offering (IPO), according to the South China Morning Post.
In the filing, there were also some new details on the size of NetEase Cloud Music: in Q1 2021, 13.3% of users pay for music streaming, up from 7.5% in Q1 of 2020. (The annual fee is 178 yuan, or £19.80/$27.50.) That’s considerable growth, and this recent ratio of paid vs freemium customers is respectable in the Chinese market. Tencent Music reported that 9.9% of its users were paying customers in the same Q1 period – although Tencent has 615 million users, in comparison to NetEase’s 183 million.
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