China's internet giant company Tencent is planning to penetrate the American market through music streaming service.
The Tencent Music Entertainment (TME) filed a listing on weekend but stressed that it does not hold the same global profile that of Spotify.
"The terms of the proposed spin-off, including offering size, price range and assured entitlement of Tencent Music securities for shareholders of the company, have not yet been finalized," said the $500-billion Tencent.
This listing at the U.S. stock market is said to give raise of as much as $1-billion to TME, giving it a $30-billion valuation. This is higher than the estimated $25-million estimated projected early this year.
Tencent's investment in this kind of business venture is not something new. Last year, it made a similar move when its digital books business unit China Literature was listed in Hong Kong's market. It gained huge success.
Its comparison to rival Spotify was also inevitable. But industry experts were quick to assess that Tencent will unlikely follow the path of Spotify and will not engage on the direct listing.
TME has more than 700 million monthly users. It is said that 15-million of whom are paying subscribers.
The wide range of market of TME can be attributed to its various apps that enable subscribers to watch live videos, stream music and play karaoke. It also has direct links with WeChat which is Tencent's version of the direct messaging app. WeChat has now more than 1-billion users.
Established in 2016, Tencent is a fast-growing digital media company in China. Upon its emancipation was a mergence with competitor company China Music.
Over the years, Tencent has been making major deals with famous media companies such as the Sony Music, Universal Music, and Warner Music as well as Korean media group YG Entertainment and China's Huayi Brothers Music.
