Tencent Music Entertainment Group (NYSE: TME) defied expectations with its fourth quarter report. A strong profit growth despite a slight revenue dip is a testament to the company’s strategic agility as growth in paid subscriptions helped offset mixed results in its social media business and the regulatory hit. Moreover, Tencent Music gathered almost as many paid subscribers as both Spotify Technology S.A. (NYSE: SPOT) and Apple Music combined have in the U.S. According to Music Watch’s latest annual study, platforms such as Spotify and Apple Music gathered 109 million paid users in 2023.
Fourth Quarter Highlights
For the quarter ended on December 31, 2023, Tencent Music showed revenue dropped 7% YoY as it amounted to $957.02 million or 6.89 billion yuan, still surpassing LSEG’s estimate of 6.71 billion yuan. The YoY revenue decline is a partly result of last year’s China's regulatory crackdown on music platforms' chance-based features. But despite the revenue ...