Techbuzz China By Pandaily

In episode 33 of TechBuzz China, co-hosts Ying-Ying Lu and Rui Ma talk about Tencent Music (TME), which finally completed its $1.2 billion IPO after a two-month delay due to market volatility. The company rose 9 percent on its first day, but has traded below the initial offering price ever since. This episode covers the business model of TME, its market potential, and our co-hosts’ thoughts on its future outlook. Though often compared with Spotify, to what extent are these two companies truly similar? Rui and Ying-Ying begin today’s story by reviewing Tencent Music’s corporate history. The entity comprises four apps: QQ Music, Kugou Music, Kuwo Music, and WeSing, which today account for a combined 70 percent of China’s music market. However, once upon a time, these were disparate products that sometimes competed; in fact, they only came together through an entity known as China Music Corporation (CMC), which was formed in 2012 by Xie Guomin. CMC acquired Kuwo in 2013 and Kugou a few months later; Tencent turn