The music industry in China has been growing remarkably during the past several years. According to IFPI data from 2015, the nation was listed as the 14th largest music market in the world. It subsequently advanced two positions to move up to 12th by 2016 and kept moving up, claiming No. 10 in 2020.
In 2021, China will surpass South Korea, the origin of K-pop, to become the sixth-largest music market in the world, according to the IFPI’s most recent Global Music Report.
One factor driving the expansion of China’s music market is the performance of the country’s larger music streaming scene, which is home to streaming giant Tencent Music Entertainment and its rival, NetEaseCloud Music.
As of the end of the second quarter of 2022, 82.7 million people were using the applications owned by Tencent Music Entertainment, including QQ Music, Kugou Music, and Kuwo Music. By the end of June 2022, rival NCM’s monthly online music-paying users had increased to 37.6 million.
TME and NCM had 120.3 million paying users in China alone as of Q2 2022 combined. At the conclusion of the second quarter, Spotify, the biggest paid music streaming service in the world, had 188 million customers. According to Warner Music, which competes in China with Sony Music and Universal Music Group, and other well-known domestic businesses, its own market revenues are now six times more than they were in 2014.
Moving forward Sherry Tan, the managing director of Warner Music China, joined the firm in June 2021 from Mengxing Media, a start-up she co-founded and which worked with celebrities such actor and singer Kris Wu and TV director Zhang Li.
Tan was born and raised in China, although she immigrated to the US as a youngster. She started working at Sony Music in New York in 2005 as an international marketing department coordinator after earning a master’s degree in music business from NYU.
Later, the executive moved to Beijing and was elevated to Director of Sony’s office there in 2007. He or she played a significant part in the Asia-focused marketing campaigns for well-known performers like Alicia Keys, Avril Lavigne, Celine Dion, and Leona Lewis.
Tan relocated to Fremantle Media in 2009, where he worked on popular TV programs like China’s Got Talent, Chinese Idol, and X Factor.
Tan worked for Fremantle at the Creative Artists Agency China, where she collaborated with a number of well-known actors, musicians, and artists, such as Danial Wu, Karen Mok, Kris Wu, Leehom Wang, and Tang Wei.
Tan co-founded Mengxing Media in 2018, a company that collaborated with the actor and musician Kris Wu and the TV director Zhang Li. The company co-produced TV series like The Voice and Tmall Double Eleven Gala 2020 and licensed the rights to movies and entertainment programs for import and export to China.
A strategic partnership with “League of Legends” to jointly create and promote new theme songs and a local collaboration deal with ByteDance-owned Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, have been partnerships made by WM China since Tan assumed the position of MD. The Business of Apps estimates that Douyin has 700 million daily active users. According to WM China, the media content it publishes on Douyin has received billions of views.
WM China intends to “continue to explore more potential cooperation opportunities with Douyin and other comparable platforms,” according to Tan, who claims that Douyin has “become one of the most effective promotional channels in the country.”
Tan adds that “short-form video has transformed the way music is currently played, shared, and enjoyed” and that “this allows for more people to find our music.” He makes this comment in response to the boom of short-form video material on sites like Douyin.
She notes, however, that “competition for eyeballs is fierce as people have only got limited time to spend every day”.