Paris-headquartered music company Believe has inked renewed deals with Chinese music platforms Tencent Music Entertainment (TME) and its rival NetEase Cloud Music.
In a media statement announcing the agreements, Believe says that it’s “been a long-term partner of both platforms from early stages and the renewed deals will result in wider opportunities to develop its local and international artists on the platforms”.
Tencent Music Entertainment (TME) operates music and music-centric social entertainment services with over 800 million users, through mobile apps like QQ Music, Kugou Music, Kuwo Music and WeSing.
Tencent Music reached 76.2 million paying users in Q4 2021 (ended December 31), up by 36.1% year-over-year.
NetEase Cloud Music, meanwhile, ended 2021 with 182.6 million MAUs, up from 180.5 million in 2020.
The service also had 28.9 million monthly paying users at the end of 20121, up from 16 million for the same period of 2020.
Believe has been operating in China since 2016, and says it was “one of the first international companies to sign distribution deals with local platforms”. It adds that it “accelerated massively its investment [in China] in 2018 as the market matured”.
Believe says that it now represents thousands of artists and hundreds of labels locally.
The company claims further to have become one of the first companies to make daily stream statistics from TME and NetEase Cloud Music available for labels and artists.
Believe cites Chinese singer Young Captain as one of its Artist Services “key clients” and success stories in China.
The music company says that he’s grown his fanbase from 50,000 to 1 million on TME, with a record of 200 chart entries on TME.
Additionally, Believe says that he’s grown his audience from 300,000 to 2.7 million on NetEase Cloud Music to date since he started releasing music through Believe in May 2021, including his album Young Captain’s Music World and multiple singles.
“China is one of the most domestic music markets in the world, with a strong consumption of local artists, by local audiences on local platforms, which could not be more aligned with Believe’s vision and core values of supporting local acts in their own markets.
Sylvain Delange, Believe
Sylvain Delange, Managing Director, APAC at Believe, said: “We are thrilled to have renewed our deals with both TME and NetEase Cloud Music.
“China is one of the most domestic music markets in the world, with a strong consumption of local artists, by local audiences on local platforms, which could not be more aligned with Believe’s vision and core values of supporting local acts in their own markets.
“I’m very excited by the opportunities these partnerships will unlock for our labels and artists, allowing them to reach new wider audiences, and very much look forward to growing our business in China even further in the future.”
In December, Sylvain Delange told MBW about Believe’s strategy in the APAC region, how its recent acquisitions are accelerating its growth, and how the company is building relationships with local labels and artists.
Tencent inked a partnership to distribute Believe content in mainland China in 2015.
Under the terms of that agreement, Tencent became the exclusive Chinese partner of Believe to distribute a repertoire of over 6 million songs on its QQ Music platform and to manage the sub–licensing business to local online music service providers in mainland China.
In July last year, Tencent Music and and its majority-owner Tencent Holdings were ordered to relinquish exclusive deals held with global labels in China after TME was investigated, in 2019, for striking exclusive licensing deals with the three major record companies in the territory.
TME previously struck deals with Universal Music, Sony Music and Warner Music that enabled it to license the majors’ music for its own platforms, but also to exclusively sub-license these catalogs to local rivals.
The platform’s latest licensing agreements with Universal and Warner no longer possesses exclusive sub-licensing rights, allowing these companies to also strike separate direct deals with TME’s biggest rival in China, NetEase Cloud Music.
NetEase inked licensing deals with Warner Chappell Music in May 2020, UMG in August 2020 and then Sony Music Entertainment in May last year.
This week, NetEase Cloud Music sued its rival Tencent Music over ‘unfair competition’ claims.Music Business Worldwide