TENCENT'S SOLID Q2

China’s Tencent Music, which is currently negotiating to purchase 10% of Universal Music Group from Vivendi, generated revenue of nearly $860m in its most recent quarter, a 33% rise over 2018.

Online music services were up 20.2% for the second quarter of 2019 to $228m driven by growth in revenues from music subscriptions and sales of digital music albums.

The company’s dominant revenue producer is its social entertainment services unit, which was up 35.3% to $632m. Online karaoke and live streaming services were driving forces behind that growth.

With four of the five most popular digital music apps in China, the company reported that it now has 652m mobile monthly active users. Of that total, only 31m are paying subscribers.

Tencent Music CEO Cussion Pang attributed the growth to partnering with more labels, adding more music-centric variety shows, short-form videos, audio books and podcasts. The company continues to build on its partnerships within parent company Tencent, developing original music content for games, films and TV shows.

“We are pleased with our progress and confident that these initiatives will lead to further growth in the second half of the year," he said.

Despite beating analysts projections, the stock was down Monday, closing at $14.45.