How Tencent came to dominate music streaming in China

Rival Spotify is not available in the country

Tencent’s Joox music streaming service is available in Hong Kong, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia.
Shares of Spotify, the world’s biggest music-streaming service, are set to start trading on the New York Stock Exchange from April 3. The Swedish company counts nearly 160 million monthly active users in more than 60 countries. But one market is missing on that list: China.

In the world’s second-largest economy, most people are glued to one of three popular music-streaming channels: QQ Music, Kugou Music and Kuwo Music. These service providers, all operated by internet giant Tencent Holdings, have a combined 700 million monthly active users -- that’s four times more than the number of subscribers on Spotify.

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