Tencent Music profit beats expectations as paid subscribers grow

China's Tencent Music Entertainment Group beat Wall Street estimates for quarterly profit on Monday, as more users paid for its music streaming services.

The company, controlled by Chinese tech giant Tencent Holdings Ltd, said paid users of its online music service jumped 27.4 percent to 28.4 million in the first quarter ended March 31.

As our users increasingly consume music content through streaming services, we are riding on this trend to gradually transition into a pay-for-streaming model over the coming years, chief executive officer Cussion Pang said in a statement.

Unlike Western peers such as Spotify Technology SA, Tencent Music generates only a fraction of revenue from music subscription packages, and instead relies heavily on services popular in China such as online karaoke and live streaming. The Swedish streaming service is a stakeholder in Tencent Music.

The company reported net income of 986 million yuan (143.39 million U.S. dollars) for the latest quarter.

Excluding items, the company earned 0.72 yuan per American depository share, beating analysts' average estimate of 0.69 yuan, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.

Tencent Music said revenue jumped 39 percent to 5.74 billion yuan (834.73 million U.S. dollars), but fell short of analysts' estimates of 5.797 billion yuan.

(CGTN)