KuGou literally means “cool dog” in Chinese. Over 300 million people listen to music on KuGou every month. This makes it almost as popular as Spotify on a global scale. Some people even call it the Chinese version of Spotify.
The music arena of Tencent
The Chinese tech behemoth owns the largest music company in the country – Tencent Music Entertainment (TME).
Key Takeaways of the Chinese Equivalent Of Spotify
Tencent's KuGou, QQ Music, and Kuwo plus NetEase's Cloud Music are the major music streaming platforms in China with over 900 million monthly active users altogether.
Youku (iPhone and Android)
Youku is China's biggest video streaming provider. Think of it as YouTube and a public broadcast channel mixed together. While there are certainly a ton of television shows and films you can watch on Youku, they have a ton of music videos available as well.
Globally, Spotify is the most popular streaming platform, followed closely by the likes of Apple Music and Amazon Music. However, if we only take the US into consideration, then Apple Music comes out on top with over 49.5 million subscribers as of 2021. It is followed closely by Spotify, with 47.7 million subscribers.
Apple Music was once the leader in all things digital music, but is currently behind Spotify with more than 98 million users worldwide. Apple's Music is known for its high-profile exclusives, robust library, curated radio, and seamless integration with iOS.
Amazon Music is a good option if you're looking for a cheap streaming service that offers a substantial high-resolution music catalog. Pricing: Prime Music: Free. Amazon Music Unlimited Ad-Supported Plan: Free.
Currently, you cannot use Spotify on Chinese soil. Due to China's censorship and geo-restrictions, you will find Spotify, and other websites, blocked from access in China, only accessible to users connecting with a reputable VPN (Virtual Private Network).
Chinese Music Industry
The most popular music genres in China are C-pop, pop, folk, country and soundtracks.
Tencent, NetEase, and Baidu are the top names to watch in China's streaming music market. Pandora and Spotify are the most popular streaming music services in America, but neither company has a meaningful presence in China's market of over 650 million streaming music users.
Like many other famous websites or web services, Spotify doesn't work in China, people living or traveling in China are typically unable to listen their favorite songs and any other song on Spotify.
Instead, the social media sites Chinese use are WeChat, Sina Weibo, Tencent QQ, Tencent Video, Xiao HongShu, Douban, Zhihu, Meituan, Toutiao, and DouYin (TikTok). What is the most popular social media in China? WeChat is the most popular social media in China.
Step 1: Go to the QQ International website
First, click here on your mobile device. Change the language settings to English by clicking in the top right corner, pictured above.
The largest Chinese live streaming platforms are Taobao Live, Kuaishou, and Douyin.
According to AppMagic, Spotify was the most downloaded music service app in Australia as of January 2022 with around 23.8 million downloads.
Which Single Country Has the Most Spotify Users in the World? The United States is responsible for the single largest Spotify market in the world. Even though North America does not have nearly as many Spotify users as Europe, the United States provides more Spotify users than any other country.
You'll see that, less than eight months after its launch, Apple Music has already expanded its reach into many areas which Spotify is yet to touch – particularly in Eastern Europe (Russia, Ukraine), Asia (Indonesia, Japan, China, India), Africa (Ghana, Egypt, Nigeria) and the Middle East (UAE, Saudi Arabia).
Huya has become the largest streaming platform for eSports streaming in China. As of December 2022, the game streaming app had amassed about 30.5 million of monthly active users in the country. Twitch, Youtube, Facebook, and Mixer are the platforms having the highest number of eSports viewership outside China.
In comparison, at its most expensive, QQ Music costs approximately $2.50 per month, and at its cheapest, QQ Music costs a mere $1 per month. This means that a year of QQ Music is almost equal to one month of Spotify.
K-pop popularity in China 2019
According to a survey conducted in China in 2019, 33.2 percent of respondents who had experienced South Korean cultural content aged 15 to 59 years considered K-pop to be very popular. An additional 37.2 percent considered it to be quite popular.
Apple Music beats Spotify on streaming quality as it supports up to 24-bit/192kHz, making it one of the best music streaming services for audiophiles.
Soundcloud says it has over 125 million songs on its platform. This is significantly more than Spotify, but a large portion of this can be low-quality content. There are some great songs on Spotify, but it is much easier to upload songs on Soundcloud, hence the reason it has so many more songs than Spotify.
Spotify has disclosed that it could not reach an agreement with the owners of the tracks, Zee Music, for the renewal of the licensing agreement after the old one expired.