QQ music belongs to tencent music entertainment group, it is the leader of China online music service and is China leading music streaming media platform. Since its inception in 2005, QQ music has registered 800 million users (Tencent, 2018). With high-quality content as the core and big data and Internet technology as the driving force, QQ music is committed to providing users with diversified music life experience (Tang, F. 2017).

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Like the growth of video sites, the music industry has turned a corner after a period of widespread piracy and free-for-all. One has to mention QQ music digital album distribution model. Digital album is a “star product” with forward-looking commercialization and ecological strategic significance of QQ music. Its success in commercialization helps the platform to build a diversified music entertainment ecology. The release of this product model also brings an important role in promoting the music industry.

According to the global music report 2018 released by IFPI at the end of April this year, driven by the development of digital music and streaming media, the overall revenue growth of China’s music market reached 35.3%, and digital music has become the core driving force for the current development of China’s music industry. The digital album model pioneered by QQ music is the main growth point of China’s digital music market. There is no doubt that the commercial success of digital albums has helped the platform to build a diversified music entertainment ecosystem, and the release of this product model has also brought an important commercial boost to the music industry.

According to statistics, QQ music innovative business model digital album brings the total sales of more than 100 million, the value of digital music is being recognized by users. With the advancement of digital music legalization and business model, the cooperation mode between traditional record industry and digital music platform has changed from simple copyright trading in the early days to more diversified cooperation mode now.

According to the characteristics of artists, QQ music makes precise promotion plans and makes full use of the promotional charts, playlists and other channels in QQ music products to give maximum publicity to singers, so that the content can be spread to target users more effectively. At the same time, digital album has also become the core cohesion and competitiveness of QQ music platform fans community operation. Users who buy digital music albums on QQ music will get exclusive nameplates, and users can also join or create a fan association, allowing the fan community to support their idols through clear digital channels. QQ music platform combined with high-quality star resources and also with the album will give the electronic template of photos with idols, artists write letters and other creative gifts to achieve interaction with stars, digital album as the center to further gather fans and musicians community, help the platform and artists to get more users. With the accumulation of these achievements, QQ music has shown obvious industrial advantages in user satisfaction and activity, forming a virtuous circle of user-centered business model.

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In the past year or two, with the substantial promotion of copyright protection policies and the end of the competition for music copyright by digital music platforms, the legalization process and the environment of paying habits of users have changed dramatically and it is believed that the spring of digital music is coming.

On the one hand, with its rich ecological layout of content, QQ music has gained a huge amount of mass traffic. It has accumulated a group of core users who can understand tencent’s membership payment model and fans of top artists who have consumption demands and it has a traffic base for payment realization. On the other hand, “album” conforms to the most intuitive imagination and expectation of Chinese consumers for the carrier of music content and is also a very acceptable product form in the digital music era, with the willingness to consume basis. Therefore, with the support of 800 million registered users and high-quality star resources, the sales volume of digital album of QQ music has been climbing all the way after its release, reaching nearly 200 million yuan in 2017. Digital album has quickly become an important indicator for the market and artists to measure the commercial success.

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The smooth emergence and popularity of digital albums is the inevitable result of QQ music making forward-looking and effective decisions based on the overall group’s resources, platform traffic and ecological layout.From the industry perspective, the album is also further developed in the music industry core consumption level “strategic products”, both showed under the ecological operation logic, China’s music industry is different from the commercial possibilities of overseas music industry, and provides practical and effective model for industry practitioners, to promote the further expansion of the industry.

Reference

Techweb. (2016). How does the music industry embrace the digital trend from QQ music industry forum?. Retrieved from http://mo.techweb.com.cn/phone/2014-06-17/2368805.shtml

Ge, J.C. (2018). How digital album for QQ music to achieve users and business win-win?. Retrieved from https://y.qq.com/portal/headline/detail.html?zid=851411

Fan, Z.H. (2018). How does QQ music lead the digital music industry. Retrieved from https://www.iyiou.com/p/76886.html

QQ Music. (2020). Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QQ_Music