Digital success story

According to Tencent Music Entertainment Group's second quarter 2019 financial report, the company - which has three major online-music services in China: QQ Music, Kugou Music and Kuwo Music - has 31 million paying online music users, up 33 percent year-on-year.

The company ended the second quarter with 652 million mobile monthly active users.

"The Chinese music market is now viewed as having enormous untapped potential thanks to constant digital transformation," says TC Pan, vice-president of Tencent Music Entertainment Group, Content Co-op & Rights Management, who attended the Music Matters 2019 event, which was held from Sept 13 to 18 in Singapore.

Now in its 14th year, Music Matters, with live performances and forums, is a global platform for the music industry in Asia.

Tencent Music Entertainment Group has attended the event since 2016 with the Chinese music market in focus during the forums.

In the early 2000s, due to rampant online piracy, China's music market faced decline with record companies shutting down and indie musicians leaving the industry. But the market took a turn for the better in 2011, when QQ Music worked out a partnership with a lot of music labels, including major companies - Warner Music, Sony Music and Universal Music - as well as independent labels.

The move allowed QQ Music to become these labels' sole distributor in the Chinese market and helped them fight piracy.

In 2015, the National Copyright Administration notice was issued, stipulating that online music delivery platforms had to remove all unauthorized songs. This was a major move in the fight against rampant piracy in the industry.

In 2018, China, a new entrant in the global top 10 the previous year, rose to the seventh position, according to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry.

During the event in Singapore, Pan also said that the company had mapped out plans to boost the music market by combining music with films and video games, thus breaking the boundaries and barriers between music, film, video games and other forms of entertainment.