《Star Market Daily》November 25th news (Reporter Zhang Yangyang) Due to page functionality issues, Netease Cloud Music and QQ Music have once again engaged in a "battle", with the former publicly calling on the latter to stop imitating "innovation".

Due to copyright, user, new feature, and other issues, the dispute between the two major online music platforms in China has been going on for many years. Behind the frequent clashes, it reflects the increasingly intense competition among online music platforms today. The conversion rate of paid users for online music in China has reached nearly 30%, with very limited room for further improvement. The difficulty in expanding paid users is a common challenge faced by all major music platforms.

▍Who copied whom?

After publicly calling out QQ Music in the afternoon, Netease Cloud Music made another statement in the evening, stating that they are intensifying efforts to continuously expand the copyright library, aiming to provide users with a more comprehensive music experience; we have recently taken down a large number of ad spaces. Aside from the splash screen position, Netease Cloud Music VIP users enjoy an ad-free experience, and we will continue to optimize the user experience; a more concise new version will be coming soon.

Today, Netease Cloud Music released a lengthy statement, publicly calling out QQ Music and demanding the latter to stop imitating "innovation".

Netease Cloud Music stated that the DIY feature for music player interface customization was launched on October 25th, allowing users to upload images for personalized player interfaces. On November 19th, Netease Cloud Music launched the inaugural "Vinyl Style Creative Contest" themed around this feature, attracting a large number of participants. However, just four days later, QQ Music introduced a highly similar "player customization function", once again copying Netease Cloud Music.

Netease Cloud Music also detailed in their statement the recent years' incidents where QQ Music was accused of "imitating" and copying Netease Cloud Music's vinyl player page, 'Listen Together' feature, Forbidden City-themed player, and demanded that QQ Music immediately cease its longstanding imitative "innovation", imitative "creativity", and follow-along "updates" behavior.

As of the deadline of this report, tencent music has not yet responded to this incident.

In response to the challenge from netease cloud music, kuwo music, also under the tencent system, quickly responded this afternoon.

Kuwo Music stated on its official Weibo account that the DIY feature for customizing player backgrounds was not pioneered by netease cloud music, but was a function introduced by Kuwo Music several years ago. Kuwo Music also mentioned that they had previously held a DIY player competition.

The struggle has never ceased.

In fact, due to issues such as copyright, users, and new features, the dispute between the two major online music platforms in China has been going on for many years.

From 2014 to 2015, tencent music acquired copyrights of works from many music companies including YG Entertainment, JVR Music, Huayi Brothers, Emperor Entertainment Group, HIM International Music, and EE-Media. At that time, WeChat, also under the Tencent group, prohibited sharing interfaces for similar online music products like netease cloud music, Xiami Music, and Duomi Music, marking the official start of the copyright battle in the online music industry.

In response to this incident, netease once published a lengthy blog post titled 'Goodbye, Moments; Hello, Good Music,' subtly mocking Tencent for lacking an open internet spirit. Meanwhile, tencent music raised the banner of 'Fighting against piracy, protecting genuine content' in response, leading to a deadlock between the two parties.

It was not until 2018, with the promotion of the National Copyright Administration, that tencent music and netease cloud music exchanged copyrights. Since then, although the conflict between the two companies has not been as intense as before, there are still many hidden and open confrontations.

Struggles in the growth of online music platforms.

Behind the confrontation between the two major music platforms, it also reflects the increasingly fierce competition among online music platforms today.

According to the 55th Statistical Report on the Development of China's Internet Network issued by the China Internet Information Center (CNNIC), the current conversion rate of online music paid users in China has approached 30%, with very limited room for further improvement. The difficulty in expanding paid users is a common challenge faced by major music platforms.

The latest financial report data shows that Tencent Music's total revenue in the third quarter of 2024 reached 7.02 billion yuan. Among them, online music subscription revenue increased by 20.3% year-on-year to 3.84 billion yuan, online music paid users increased by 15.5% year-on-year to 0.119 billion, with a net increase of 2 million from the previous quarter. The net income was 1.71 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 35.3%.

Under the Tencent Music system, there are QQ Music, Kugou Music, and Kuwo Music. Taking QQ Music as an example, its membership is divided into Green Diamond Members and SVIP Super Members, with the former providing only basic services. Last December, QQ Music raised the automatic renewal price of Green Diamond Members from 11.4 yuan/month to 15 yuan/month. QQ Music also increased promotion efforts for SVIP.

Financial report data for the third quarter shows that Tencent Music's SVIP member base has exceeded 10 million. Under the influence of these two strategies, the revenue per individual paid user of Tencent Music increased by 4.9% year-on-year. Despite the continuous growth in Tencent Music's paid users, the overall monthly active user number has shown a declining trend, down by 3% year-on-year in the third quarter to 0.576 billion.

Netease Cloud Music did not disclose its third-quarter financial report, but according to Netease's financial report, in the third quarter, Netease Cloud Music had a net income of 2 billion yuan, an increase of 1.3% year-on-year, with a gross margin of 32.8%. The financial report stated that the year-on-year increase in Netease Cloud Music's gross profit was mainly due to the growth in subscription revenue and continuous improvement in cost control.

The semi-annual report shows that in the first half of 2024, Netease Cloud Music's revenue from online music services was 2.56 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 26.6%, and revenue from membership subscriptions was 2.1443 billion yuan, compared to 1.709 billion yuan in the same period last year. In addition, the ratio of Netease Cloud Music's daily active users to monthly active users remained above 30% in the first half of 2024.