Tencent Music Entertainment Group (TME), China‘s dominant music streaming platform, announced robust fourth-quarter 2024 financial results on Tuesday, marked by substantial growth in its music subscription business and expanded profit margins.
The company, which operates popular apps including QQ Music, Kugou Music, and WeSing, reported total revenues of RMB7.46 billion ($1.02 billion) for Q4, representing an 8.2% year-over-year increase. This growth was primarily driven by the company’s online music services, which surged 16.1% to $799 million. Music subscription revenues were particularly strong, reaching $552 million – an 18% jump compared to the same period in 2023.
The company’s paying user base expanded to 121 million subscribers, up 13.4% year-over-year and adding two million new subscribers from the previous quarter alone.
“2024 was a year of solid progress for TME, marked by strong performance in our online music business driving overall revenue growth and expanding profit margins,” said Cussion Pang, executive chair of TME. “Our pioneering initiatives across the music value chain have reshaped the industry landscape and enriched our ecosystem, boosting subscriber penetration rate and lifetime value.”
The company’s quarterly net profit reached $284 million, representing a remarkable 47.3% increase from the previous year. Operating profit rose 40.5% to $330 million, with gross margin improving to 43.6% from 38.3% in the same period of 2023. For the full year 2024, total revenues increased 2.3% to $3.89 billion, with music subscription revenues climbing 25.9% to $2.09 billion. Annual net profit was $974 million, up 36.2% year-over-year. TME’s board of directors approved an annual cash dividend of approximately $273 million for the year ended December 31, 2024, and authorized a new share repurchase program of up to $1 billion during a 24-month period beginning March 2025.
Ross Liang, CEO of TME, highlighted the company’s focus on user experience and content innovation: “Our unwavering focus on user experience and effective operations have been crucial for stellar performance in 2024 and will continue to underpin future development. Enriching content ecosystem, fueled by technology integration, empowered us to further innovate and lead the way of music content consumption.”
The company noted particularly strong performance from its SVIP premium membership program, which showed sequential growth in memberships along with improved ARPPU (Average Revenue Per Paying User) and engagement.
TME also reported expanded partnerships with mapping services and electric vehicle manufacturers including BYD and XPENG to boost in-car music consumption. As part of its technological innovation, TME integrated DeepSeek LLM into song creation and launched virtual fan-artist communities for acts like JC-T and Teens in Times.
Looking ahead to 2025, Liang stated that the company aims “to harness the power of AI to personalize our services and bring more new experiences to users.”
The company’s cash position remains strong, with combined cash, cash equivalents, term deposits and short-term investments totaling $5.15 billion as of December 31, 2024.
