(Reuters) – China’s Tencent Music Entertainment Group on Tuesday reported higher revenue after five straight quarterly declines, driven by growth in paying users on its Spotify-like music streaming platform, sending its U.S.-listed shares up nearly 3% in premarket trading.
The company, which is China’s answer to Spotify, has been ramping up its original content slate to help put more users behind a paywall, as it competes with the likes of NetEase’s Cloud Music and Bytedance-owned short video sharing platform Douyin.
Paying users at its online music streaming service rose to 94.4 million in the quarter, up from 88.5 million in the prior quarter.
Total revenue of the company, controlled by Chinese tech giant Tencent Holdings Ltd, stood at 7.0 billion yuan ($1.01 billion) in the quarter ended March 31, compared with analysts’ estimates of 6.86 billion yuan, according to Refinitiv data.
Net profit attributable to equity holders was 1.15 billion yuan, compared with 609 million yuan in the same period last year.
($1 = 6.9121 Chinese yuan renminbi)
(Reporting by Samrhitha Arunasalam in Bengaluru; Editing by Rashmi Aich)
