Tencent’s ‘third-tier’ audio platform Penguin FM to shut down in September after lagging far behind rivals like Ximalaya

Penguin FM, launched in 2015, will shut down on September 6, after failing to attract the millions of users seen on Ximalaya, Dragonfly FM and Lizhi

Chinese audio platforms saw renewed interest following the brief viral success of Clubhouse in 2021, contributing to heated competition

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Tencent has announced that it will shut down its audio platform Penguin FM in September after years of struggling to catch up with rivals. Photo: Weibo

Ann Caoin Shanghai

Published: 11:00pm, 5 Jul 2023

Chinese social media giant Tencent Holdings said it will shut down its eight-year-old online audio platform Penguin FM in September, as China’s most highly valued tech giant continues to consolidate its content businesses.

Penguin FM has stopped new user registrations, and existing users can no longer add money to their accounts, the business unit said in a statement on its website on Wednesday.

Tencent launched the platform in 2015, allowing users to listen to a variety of audio products, including music stations, books, news, and chat channels. The company did not provide a specific explanation for the decision, simply calling it a “business adjustment”. “It is a pity to say goodbye to users,” the company said in the statement.

There is heated competition among Chinese online audio service platforms, which saw a frenzy of fresh activity in 2021 when the briefly popular US-based Clubhouse went viral, including in China, where it was blocked in a matter of months.

Ximalaya, a podcasting platform that is also backed by Tencent, has the largest market share with more than 100 million monthly active users (MAUs). Rivals Dragonfly FM and Lizhi each have over 10 million MAUs, according to a March report from Selection Data, a Chinese research firm. The report ranked Penguin FM as a “third-tier” app, with over 1 million MAUs.

Tencent has been consolidating multiple businesses over the past year, as it tries to cut costs and trim unprofitable operations amid economic headwinds and a tightened regulatory environment.

The tech conglomerate closed Kandian, its content creation app, last August, two months after it pulled the plug on its video game streaming platform Penguin Esports.

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