Tencent Music expected to file for US-based IPO this week

Tencent Music is expected to submit an IPO filing to the United States Securities and Exchange Commission on July 6 as it begins its US listing.

According to an unnamed source, the listing is being underwritten by Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. The company is expected to be valued at between $29 billion to $31 billion.

Tencent Music runs QQ Music, Kugou, and Kuwo. According to figure from December 2017, Tencent Music has 700 million monthly active users (MAU), 17 million songs, and 12o million paying subscribers.

The company’s 2016 revenue reached nearly RMB 5 billion, with a net profit of close to RMB 600 million. A year later,  its operating income reached RMB 9.4 billion and its net profit exceeded RMB 1.88 billion. These gains are expected to continue in the future, with an expected revenue of RMB 17 billion in 2018.

According to a 2017 report, the company’s three music apps were the most popular in China. Tencent’s competition includes Alibaba, NetEase, and Baidu Music, the latter merging with Taihe Music in 2015 and rebranding to Qianqian Music in 2018.

Due to increasing government crackdowns on companies in the music streaming industry which provide unlicensed music, firms in this space are forming copyright partnerships.  In 2017, Tencent Music and Entertainment teamed with Ali Music Group on music copyrights. The company then reached a cross-licensing agreement with NetEase Music following copyright disputes. Tencent has also sought partnerships with international counterparts including Spotify.