Tencent Music Entertainment Group, China’s dominant online music and audio platform, reported second-quarter 2025 revenue of $1.18 billion, up 17.9% year-over-year.
The performance was powered by growth in online music services, particularly subscriptions and new SVIP premium offerings, while social entertainment services continued to decline.
SVIP is Tencent Music’s “Super VIP” tier, a higher-priced premium membership offering perks such as enhanced audio quality, early concert ticket access, exclusive digital albums, and collectible artist merchandise.
Revenue from online music services rose 26.4% to $957 million, with music subscription revenue reaching $611 million, a 17.1% year-over-year increase. Monthly average revenue per paying user climbed to approximately $1.63, up from $1.49 a year earlier. Paying users totaled 124.4 million, a 6.3% increase, even as monthly active users dipped 3.2% to 553 million.
Net profit attributable to equity holders of the company was $336 million, up 43.2% from the same period last year. On a non-IFRS basis, that figure improved to $359 million, up 37.4%. IFRS — International Financial Reporting Standards — is the global set of accounting rules companies follow in their official statements, while non-IFRS figures adjust for certain one-time items to better reflect core performance. Operating profit rose 35.5% to $416 million, with gross margin expanding to 44.4% from 42.0%. Operating expenses were $161 million, representing a lower percentage of revenue compared to last year. Tencent Music ended the quarter with $4.87 billion in cash, equivalents, and short-term investments.
Tencent Music expanded its content ecosystem through new deals with K-pop companies The Black Label and H M Music, and a collaboration with Chinese star Wang Feng. The company partnered with SM Entertainment to release NCT Chenle’s Chinese EP “Lucid,” supported by extensive promotions. It also created the theme song for “The Lychee Road” and increased content development with Zhejiang Satellite TV.
Live events contributed strongly, with G-Dragon’s concert tour in Macau drawing 36,000 fans and selling out merchandise. The company also staged concerts with Fiona Sit, Tia Ray, and rapper GAI, and supported over 300 offline shows via its City Live and Buff Live platforms.
Product and membership innovation remained central. New features included Viper HiFi and one-click audio enhancement 2.0 on Kugou Music, plus an AI Chorus tool. SVIP users enjoyed exclusive benefits such as early concert ticket access, artist digital albums, and collectible star cards from artists including A-Lin, JJ Lin, Jolin Cai, G-Dragon, Blackpink, JC-T, Silence Wang, and Aespa. Tencent Music also launched “bubble” on QQ Music in partnership with DearU, enabling K-pop and Chinese music fans to connect directly with artists.
Executive chair Cussion Pang said: “We delivered high-quality growth in the second quarter, achieving solid year-over-year increases in both revenue and profitability. While our music subscription business remained a core growth driver, our expanding suite of music-related services – including advertising, concerts, and artist merchandise – showed impressive momentum.”
“Our focus on product innovation to deliver immersive user experiences has driven solid growth in our online music business,” CEO Ross Liang added. “We are especially pleased to see our SVIP subscribers recently surpass 15 million, a new milestone reflecting the deep trust and loyalty of our users.”
