Apple Music expands Chinese music collection via Tencent deal

Apple Music and Tencent Music Entertainment, the Chinese internet giant’s music streaming subsidiary, agree on a partnership that allows Chinese music artists to distribute their works through Apple Music.

Apple Music users will soon have access to more Chinese musicians as Tencent Music Entertainment (TME), the online music subsidiary of Tencent, announced that music artists and record labels as part of its ‘Music Cloud’ platform can now distribute their works through Apple Music. This development will also help promote more high-quality Chinese music overseas. It is not known what TME’s ‘Music Cloud’ is, but it appears that the platform will help serve small-time artists who lack the distribution and marketing help that big labels can provide.

Tencent says that this will enable music lovers to explore China’s unique music culture and genres, enhancing the global discovery of Chinese music and assisting in the international development and recognition of Chinese artists. In the past four years, TME has built a platform for independent musicians to distribute their works, attract fans, host virtual concerts and generate income. In return, TME gets licensing rights to the artist’s work.

TME has spent hundreds of millions of dollars securing exclusive music licenses from Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, and Warner Music collectively called the ‘Big Three’ record labels. It is unlikely that TME will share its expensive licensed music with Apple Music. More details will arise when the partners decide to release more information on the partnership.

Tencent Music Entertainment had joined hands with Spotify in 2017 under a share swapping agreement. However, the deal didn’t include content sharing.