NetEase Cloud Financial Results: Music Is Up, Social Entertainment Down

NetEase Cloud Music, the music streaming service launched by Chinese internet company NetEase, Inc. in 2013, has shared its half-year-end financial results. Here’s a quick breakdown:

On the up: Similarly to rivals Tencent Music, NetEase’s music services showed increases in both its user and subscriber pools. The company closed out June with 206.7 million monthly active users, clocking a 13.7% year-on-year increase. With 41.8 million of those people purchasing subscriptions and/or digital album downloads, it also calculated an 11.1% year-on-year increase in paying users. 

In tandem with the user/subs boost, revenue from NetEase’s online music services grew by 13.3% to ¥2 billion RMB – equivalent to approximately $274.4 million –  in the first six months of 2023. The company plans to continue nurturing its music community with the innovative features it rolled out in the first half of 2023. Those features include its music-creation software offered to independent artists and its interactive Comment Square, where musicians and listeners can discuss music on the platform.

Going down: Also similarly to Tencent Music, NetEase’s social entertainment branch (think: livestreaming) saw a significant decrease in revenue – nearly 24%, to be exact.