Monthly active users declined, profits increased: Tencent Music strikes gold in the "stock game."
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Author | Huang Yu
Bidding farewell to the era of reckless expansion purely by scale, Tencent Music Entertainment Group (hereinafter referred to as "Tencent Music") is now attempting to unearth a purer vein of gold atop its massive copyright reserves.
On March 17, Tencent Music released its financial report for the fourth quarter and the full year of last year. Against the backdrop of the pan-entertainment industry’s traffic dividend peaking, this report demonstrated notable resilience: for the full year 2025, Tencent Music’s total revenue reached 32.9 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 15.8%; adjusted net profit was 9.92 billion yuan, up 22% year-on-year. In the fourth quarter alone, total revenue was 8.64 billion yuan, up 15.9% year-on-year.
The strong growth in total revenue and profit is mainly attributable to the continued high-quality growth of online music services, with a qualitative transformation occurring in its level of commercialization.
The financial report shows that in the full year 2025, online music service revenue increased by 22.9% year-on-year to 26.73 billion yuan, with particularly strong growth in non-subscription online music business, which rose 39.2% year-on-year to 9.07 billion yuan.
If we focus on the core data, we see a typical snapshot of the Chinese internet entering maturity: the absolute scale of the user pool is shrinking, but the value per user is soaring.
In the fourth quarter of 2025, Tencent Music's online music service monthly active users (MAU) were 528 million, down 5% from 556 million in the same period in 2024.
The continual consumption of user attention by short video platforms remains the long-term backdrop faced by online music platforms.
However, despite the decline in MAU, the number of paying users for online music actually rose against the trend, reaching 127.4 million, a year-on-year growth of 5.3%.
Average revenue per paying user (ARPPU) rose from 11.1 yuan in the fourth quarter of 2024 to 11.9 yuan in the fourth quarter of 2025, an increase of 7.2% year-on-year.
Behind the simultaneous rise in quantity and price lies Tencent Music’s “gold mining” formula found in the era of stock competition: the super membership strategy.
It has been a long and painful process nurturing users’ willingness to pay on domestic streaming platforms.
In the early years, rampant piracy made it almost impossible for digital music to generate direct economic benefits. Although QQ Music, under Tencent Music, began testing paid subscriptions as early as 2007, for a long time, it was actually the social entertainment business (such as Karaoke and live streaming) that made up the bulk of the company’s revenue.
As the domestic copyright environment improved, and as exclusive copyright barriers of streaming platforms were both built and dismantled, the market gradually returned to its essence: paying for good content.
Now, basic subscription membership can no longer meet the needs of a segmented market. Tencent Music has introduced a multi-tiered membership system, successfully converting a group of high-value users into “super members.” The financial report notes that thanks to deeper cooperation with labels and artists, as well as the introduction of high-value new perks, the number of super members surpassed 20 million by the end of 2025.
This is not a simple price increase, but rather a reconstruction of value.
Tencent Music invited traffic-driving celebrities like Ding Yuxi, Ju Jingyi, and Wang Junkai as spokespersons, and offered super members differentiated services such as priority ticket packages for QQ Music 2026 Super Peak Night, high-quality sound, and effects. When more than 300 classic works by legendary artists like Eason Chan and Andy Lau received Dolby Atmos effects, what users purchased was no longer a simple “right to listen,” but an immersive, privileged experience.
Such a strategy of moving toward a higher-dimensional ecosystem should be the necessary progression for any streaming platform.
While thoroughly mining the subscription “goldmine,” another growth curve has also been discovered—non-subscription business.
If music subscription is Tencent Music’s moat for risk resistance, then non-subscription business revolving around live performances and merchandise is its new engine for profit growth.
In 2025, Tencent Music’s online music non-subscription revenue grew 39.2% year-on-year, reaching 9.07 billion yuan for the year. In the fourth quarter alone, this income grew 40.8% year-on-year to 2.54 billion yuan.
This high growth rate reflects Tencent Music’s rapid unlocking of IP value.
With steady performance growth and ample cash flow, dividends were a natural result.
The company’s board approved a cash dividend of $0.12 per ordinary share for FY2025, totaling approximately $368 million.
However, for Tencent Music, the road ahead isn’t all smooth.
Market penetration for online music is already approaching its ceiling, and the decline in monthly active users is an indisputable fact. Short video platforms like Douyin and Kuaishou remain important music promotion battlegrounds, constantly grabbing shares of users' entertainment time.
Tencent Music can’t afford to rest on its laurels. Faced with ever-shifting user demands and covetous new competitors, only by relentlessly strengthening its differentiated content advantages and exploring commercial closed loops in multiple scenarios, can this goldmine continue to generate value.
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