FILE PHOTO: Tencent Music Entertainment celebrate the company’s IPO on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, U.S., December 12, 2018. REUTERS/Bryan R Smith/File Photo
(Reuters) – China’s Tencent Music Entertainment Group beat Wall Street estimates for quarterly revenue on Monday, as the music streaming service attracted more paying users.
The company’s U.S.-listed shares were up about 1% in extended trading.
The company, controlled by Chinese tech giant Tencent Holdings Ltd, said paid users of its online music service jumped about 42% to 35.4 million in the third quarter.
Tencent Music, which has a user base of more than 900 million, has been shifting more of its content behind a paywall since earlier this year.
Although its music streaming services have more users, Tencent Music’s biggest revenue drivers are its social entertainment services — Karaoke platform ‘WeSing’ and ‘Kugou Live’ and ‘Kuwo Live’ — where users can live stream concerts and shows.
Monthly average revenue per paying user from its social entertainment services rose 7.4% to 127.3 yuan ($18.20). It reported 12.2 million paying users for the segment during the quarter, a rise of 23.2% from a year earlier.
The company’s net income rose to 1.02 billion yuan, in the quarter ended Sept. 30 from 964 million yuan, a year earlier.
Revenue rose about 31% to 6.51 billion yuan, above estimates of 6.45 billion yuan, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.
Excluding items, the company earned 0.74 yuan per American depositary share, above estimates of 0.66 yuan.
Reporting by Ayanti Bera in Bengaluru and Pei Li in Beijing; Editing by Amy Caren Daniel
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