Xiami Story: An Ideal Online Music Model Doesn’t Work for Now

The latest rumor that Xiami was acquired by Alibaba group was confirmed with media’s finding the domain administrator’s email address was changed to alibaba’s. According to a source close to Alibaba and the case, the acquisition was initiated half a year ago.

Interesting enough, the four core members of Xiami quit Alibaba as engineers in 2006, just before the company’s listing on the HKSE, to launch Xiami in early 2007.

It’s hard to say whether Xiami is a successful music service. It has gained a group of hard-core users with a good service, but few people, either copyright holders or users, buy into the business model with which it was intended to revolutionize China’s music industry.

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