Tencent Music Entertainment is planning to start trading on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange ‘as soon as next week’.
That’s according to Bloomberg, which, citing people familiar with the matter, reports that TME is currently prepping for its secondary listing and that ‘marketing activities may start in the coming days’.
China’s TME, home to three of the country’s leading music streaming services; QQ Music, Kugou and Kuwo, started trading on the New York Stock Exchange on December 12, 2018.
The firm raised around $1.1bn in its US IPO.
Tencent Music Entertainment said in March that it was planning to list on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange via so-called ‘introduction’, which, as the South China Morning Post reported at the time, is ‘a process that makes them tradeable without raising new capital’, and is a faster route to listing.
SCMP noted at the time that TME is pursuing the listing in Hong Kong, amidst a ‘flurry of New York-listed Chinese companies seeking safe haven from the looming risk of expulsion from US capital markets’.
The secondary listing plan was announced by TME Executive Chairman Cussion Pang alongside the firm’s Q4 2021 and FY 2021 results.
“We are pursuing a secondary listing on the Main Board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange through a listing by way of introduction (which is a direct listing without any offering of new shares), subject to regulatory approvals,” said Pang.
Tencent rival NetEase‘s subsidiary Cloud Village – which operates music streaming service NetEase Cloud Music – listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in December.
TME reported last month that it ended Q2 2022 with 82.7 million paying music users.
TME generated revenues of RMB 2.11 billion (USD $315 million) for its music streaming services including QQ Music, Kugou Music and Kuwo Music in the quarter ending June 30.
The company added a total of 2.5 million paying music users in Q2 versus the end of Q1 2022.
Spotify, by comparison, added 6 million net Premium subscribers in Q2, bringing its global subscriber base to 188 million.Music Business Worldwide