Tencent Music Plummets 0.31% as Q2 Gains Clash with 375th Trading Rank

Tencent Music (TME) reported a 0.31% decline on August 14, 2025, with a trading volume of $0.26 billion, ranking 375th in market activity. The stock’s performance followed mixed developments in its second-quarter results and strategic initiatives.

The company’s Q2 2025 online music revenue reached $957 million, a 26.4% year-over-year increase, driven by its premium Super VIP (SVIP) tier, which now accounts for 12% of total subscribers. Executives highlighted the potential of the K-pop-focused "Bubble" superfan app, integrated into QQ Music, to boost SVIP growth. The platform allows superfans to engage with artists through exclusive content and live streams, with plans to expand beyond K-pop to Chinese artists. TME is bundling Bubble access with its premium subscriptions, signaling a strategic push to monetize fan engagement.

Tencent Music is also expanding into live events and merchandise, with G-DRAGON’s sold-out Macau concert drawing 36,000 attendees and 7 million simultaneous online viewers. The company reported doubling revenues from concert promotions and merchandise in Q2, including physical albums and branded items like G-DRAGON’s light sticks. Additionally, TME’s live events arm is organizing concerts for emerging artists and leveraging proprietary brands to host over 300 offline shows in the first half of the year.

Strategic experimentation includes a pilot "three-tier" subscription model, introducing an ad-supported membership tier between free and paid options. CEO Ross Liang described this as a way to attract price-sensitive users while maintaining revenue from standard and SVIP subscribers. Meanwhile, the $2.4 billion acquisition of long-form audio platform Ximalaya remains pending regulatory approval, though executives emphasized its potential to diversify content offerings and enhance engagement among premium subscribers.

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