A new battlefield is about to emerge, how can online music win the future?

A new battlefield is about to emerge, how can online music win the future?

Entertainment Value Officer

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2025-03-25

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  Technical knowledge, industry knowledge, business knowledge, etc. are all domain related knowledge that B-end product managers need to understand and master, which is helpful for product solution design and evaluation

The empowerment of AI technology, the improvement of personalized user experience, the construction of community culture, and the innovation of diversified business models are becoming key factors for online music platforms to win the future. This article will delve into the new trends in the online music industry and analyze how major platforms can leverage technological innovation and ecological layout for reference.

Whether it's a dark horse movie that breaks through the box office ceiling, a long video that moves forward under pressure and occasionally brings unexpected surprises, or a short drama that moves forward at full speed and is gaining momentum, in the entertainment industry, movies, long dramas, and short dramas always stand at the center of the stage, with new topics and cases repeatedly entering the public eye.

However, amidst the fierce competition between long and short dramas, as well as the intense competition between large and small screens, music, which has a weak presence but permeates every corner of life, is quietly making a fortune.

Tencent Music and NetEase Cloud Music have recently released unaudited financial reports for the full year of 2024, and both platforms' online music businesses continue to grow with high quality. TME's online music business continues to grow with high quality, with annual online music service revenue increasing by 25.5% year-on-year to 21.74 billion yuan, accounting for over 75% of total revenue. NetEase Cloud's online music service revenue was 5.35 billion yuan, an increase of 23.1% from 4.35 billion yuan in 2023. In 2024, membership subscription revenue was 4.46 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 22.2%.

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Through financial reports and the layout of several major platforms in the past two years, it can be seen that online music has entered a new stage of consolidating the music ecology from competing for the copyright market. The core advantages demonstrated by each company and the key competitive barriers strengthened are also the key to the competition and development of domestic online music in the future period.

01 Use AI to retain more listeners

The financial reports of the two major music giants both mentioned the help of AI technology in improving performance. With the rapid iteration of artificial intelligence technology and the increasing expansion of application scenarios, the AI world is about to usher in greater changes and a new round of competition, which will also bring new creativity and vitality to online music, giving rise to more application scenarios and business opportunities.

According to the financial report, benefiting from the rapid growth of member subscribers, the core business performance of NetEase Cloud Music has significantly improved, with a doubling of net profit for the full year of 2024. The company recently announced the completion of full capability integration of the DeepSeek R1 model, upgrading its AI creative capabilities.

Tencent Music has also been synchronously refreshed based on AI technology to improve efficiency. Since the Spring Festival, Tencent's series of products have been intensively integrated with the external model DeepSeek-R. Among them, Tencent Music integrates the DeepSeek big language model optimization recommendation algorithm to enhance personalized experience; Launch AI accompaniment and virtual communities (such as the Time Youth League fan community) to further enhance user stickiness.

In the past two years, AI technology has been reshaping the core competitive dimension of music streaming media. From the perspective of content production, the changes brought by AI are an opportunity for popular singers and online music platforms to break through existing creative and copyright bottlenecks.

In the 2025 CCTV Spring Festival Gala, the robot dance "Yang BOT" is popular. The accompaniment music of this program is not created by human beings, but the "electronic China-Chic" work generated by AI through the analysis of nearly a hundred years of Spring Festival folk music. In fact, with the continuous iteration and upgrading of various modeling tools, AI plays an increasingly important role in music creation. AI can quickly generate customized music that adapts to game scenes and movie OSTs, reducing reliance on external composers and enriching online music platform libraries at low cost.

Recently, the song "Seven Days of Love" topped the list of Netease Cloud music for a long time, and Tiktok related topics were played more than 200 million times. The uniqueness of this song is not how amazing the melody is, but because it is an AI work created by DeepSeek. Many netizens in the comment section praised the smooth melody and elegant lyrics of the entire song, which makes Fang Wenshan probably scratch his head. Although the song still lacks breakthrough melody design and has a "pipeline love song" flavor, its artistic height has not yet reached the level of top human creators, but it can already meet the market's demand for standardized emotional consumer products.

The popularity of "Seven Days of Love" marks that AI music has surpassed the threshold of "technical usability". Next, through AI mass production of vertical content such as square dance songs and car DJ music, seizing the long tail market overlooked by traditional record companies will expand more content and value increment for online music platforms. At the same time, binding AI songs with virtual human IP can also create virtual idols with more emotional projection, further enhancing the user stickiness of the platform.

At the user experience level, intelligent recommendation algorithms empowered by AI technology have also become the product killer of major online music platforms.

The multimodal recommendation engine can generate "thousands of faces" playlists by integrating user listening records, social interactions, and offline scene (in car, sports mode) data.

As they gain more and more understanding of users, the recommended tracks will become more appealing to them, and there will be fewer and fewer content instructions required for users to input. This continuous iteration and upgrading, truly understanding the personalized recommendations of users, once experienced, will be difficult to leave.

By integrating big language models such as DeepSeek into song creation functions and incorporating AI assistants, comment areas, recommendation pages, and other scenarios, AI has stimulated users' enthusiasm for music creation and enriched the platform's content ecosystem.

On the other hand, it enhances users' willingness to pay by providing a comprehensive personalized music experience.

Tencent Music's financial report shows that the number of online music paying users will grow to 121 million in 2024, a year-on-year increase of 13.4%. Among them, the recommended playback share will significantly increase, and the user's song collection will increase by 10% year-on-year. Q4 user participation and monthly average income per paying user will steadily increase.

In 2025, Tencent Music will use AI to achieve content innovation, enhance personalized services, and bring users more fresh music experiences, which will become an important driving force for the development of online music platforms.

In the post copyright era, differentiated experiences are crucial

Although major platforms are actively embracing AI technology and emphasizing the importance of user experience, they have currently formed differentiated advantages based on their unique resources and technologies.

In the post copyright era, using AI to solve various pain points in user music consumption and provide diversified, higher quality, and more unique music experiences has become an important issue for major music platforms.

Many people choose QQ Music for three reasons: music library, sound quality, and a more mature membership hierarchy system.

Among major online music platforms, QQ Music has covered over 90% of popular Chinese songs, with the largest number and most comprehensive variety. It also holds exclusive copyrights for top tier singers such as Jay Chou, Mayday, and BTS. The "Premium Sound Quality" (24bit/192kHz) and "Galaxy Sound Effect" launched also meet the needs of audiophiles.

On this basis, QQ Music has formed a multi-dimensional and differentiated membership system with layered services and scenario based rights as its core. Luxury Green Diamond, SVIP, and device exclusive membership segments correspond to different needs, rights, and music consumption scenarios.

How to find a balance between member value-added space and user rights, and carry out more refined layered operations, will be a key point for QQ Music to expand its increment in the future period.

In addition, the fan rights and diverse gameplay of QQ Music are also a major highlight that attracts users. The gameplay of fan ranking, celebrity parachuting, peripheral lottery, one click jump to karaoke function, virtual performance, etc. will further strengthen the copyright+all scene entertainment barrier of QQ Music.

However, QQ Music also has its own shortcomings. The community atmosphere is relatively weak, and users tend to prefer "listening tools" rather than social interaction. The activity level of the comment section is not high, and social interaction is precisely the advantage of NetEase Cloud Music.

The community culture and long tail content of NetEase Cloud Music have always been one of the biggest highlights that attract users. After initially becoming popular with "comment section stories," NetEase Cloud Music users have been far ahead in terms of UGC interaction activity. The "Cloud Village" community ecology created by the platform is unique, with music reviews as the core of the dynamic square. Users can form strong social connections through interactive comments.

The unique "hot comment culture" has become a carrier for users to express their emotions, and high like story comments often appear in the comments section of popular songs. This type of UGC content continues to enhance users' sense of belonging and stickiness.

In terms of content, although not as comprehensive as QQ Music's music library, NetEase Cloud Music covers over 500000 original musicians and has a rich library of niche styles, which can better meet the needs of niche music fans.

Next, it is particularly crucial to address the two major pain points of NetEase Cloud's limited progress in copyright for top singers and intensified advertising in recent years.

After the two giants grew bigger, they sought stability and "defended themselves", giving Huawei Music and Soda Music, two rising stars, the opportunity to break through.

The personalized recommendation algorithm of soda music is accurate enough, and the seamless jump of hot songs synchronized with Tiktok, lower member prices, and the experience of retro Tiktok interactive logic make it a lever for Tiktok to leverage the music industry. With the rapid expansion of the number of users, soda music becomes more and more valuable in the Tiktok content ecology.

Huawei Music has precisely solved the pain point of online music software going further and further on the road of socialization, with bloated functions. It has attracted a large wave of users with a simpler pure music experience.

In addition, the hardware ecosystem's full scene coverage and lossless sound quality are also ahead of the industry.

03 From "Listening to Music" to "Music+" Ecology

The annual financial report released by Tencent Music shows an adjusted net profit of 8.14 billion yuan in 2024, a year-on-year increase of 30.7%.

The significant increase in profits was mainly driven by strong growth in music subscription revenue and advertising service revenue, with subscription services contributing 15.23 billion yuan in revenue, a year-on-year increase of 25.9%.

The reason for the significant increase in subscription services is partly due to the increase in the number of paid members, with a net increase of 13 million to 121 million for the whole year.

On the other hand, thanks to the price increase, the monthly revenue of a single user increased by 3.7% year-on-year to 11.1 yuan.

It can be seen that the growth logic of Tencent Music's paid user base is not the past "price for quantity", but through the provision of high-quality content and the construction of a "music+" ecosystem, experience upgrades and scene extensions have been achieved, ultimately driving payment conversion and achieving dual improvement in SVIP penetration rate and ARPPU goodness.

By collaborating with classic singers such as Dao Lang and Luo Dayou, such as the 20th anniversary concert of "The First Snow of 2002", Tencent Music has activated the willingness of middle-aged and elderly users to pay.

The "audio-visual+" co creation model launched afterwards deeply integrates music and film IP. The OST content of works such as "Celebrating the Second Season of the Year", "The Story of Rose", and "Jade Plate" not only attracts film and television traffic, but also drives a surge in music playback volume, forming a closed loop of Tencent content consumption. In addition, the Super Membership (SVIP) launched for high-value users provides differentiated benefits such as AI sound optimization, high-definition concert viewing, and in car scene privileges, covering users' daily life scenes in all areas. By upgrading the "Music Listening Tool" to a "Music Lifestyle Entrance", the daily usage time of QQ Music users has increased from 60 minutes to 90 minutes, and the value and potential of the "Music+" ecosystem have begun to emerge.

In fact, the online music industry that is entering the "streaming media 2.0 era" is no longer simply a matter of copyright content competition, but a three-dimensional competition of "technology+scene+community". Ecological power will replace copyright power and become the most important growth engine and the core of building differentiation barriers.

Multiple industry insiders and investment institutions predict that China's online music industry will continue to maintain its growth momentum in 2025, but the development model will shift from high-speed expansion to structural optimization, with core driving forces gradually shifting towards technological innovation, scene expansion, and deep exploration of user value.

With music as the core, through technological empowerment, scene integration, cross-border cooperation, and user segmentation, whoever can take the lead in building a full chain ecosystem covering "content production consumer experience derivative services" will win the future in the next round of competition.

What are Tencent Music, NetEase Cloud, and Soda Music competing for in 2024? Why is Huawei Music's annual chart "unique" after the "Listening Report" flooded the screen? Under the synergy of software and hardware, Huawei Music delivers the "ultimate" answer sheet

Author: Chen Tong Editor: Meiqi

This article is authored by Renren who is a product manager [Entertainment Value Officer]. WeChat official account: [Entertainment Value Officer]. It is original/authorized to be published by Renren who is a product manager. Reproduction without permission is prohibited.

The title image is from Unsplash, based on the CC0 protocol.

新战场呼之欲出，在线音乐靠什么赢得未来？

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2025-03-25

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AI技术的赋能、用户个性化体验的提升、社区文化的构建以及多元化的商业模式创新，正在成为在线音乐平台赢得未来的关键因素。本文将深入探讨在线音乐行业的新趋势，分析各大平台如何通过技术创新和生态布局，供大家参考。

无论是捅破票房天花板的黑马电影，还是承压前行、不时有爆款带来意外之喜的长视频，抑或是全速前进、风头正劲的微短剧，在文娱行业，电影、长剧集、微短剧始终都站在舞台的中心，屡屡有新的话题和案例闯入大众视线。

然而，在长短剧此消彼长、大小屏竞争激烈的同时，音乐这个存在感并不算强，但又渗透进生活每个角落的内容品类，却正闷声发大财。

腾讯音乐、网易云音乐近日都发布了2024全年未经审计财报，两大平台的在线音乐业务都持续高质量增长。TME在线音乐业务持续高质量增长，全年在线音乐服务收入同比增长25.5%至217.4亿元，占总收入的比例超75%。网易云在线音乐服务收入53.5亿元，较2023年的43.5亿元增加23.1%，2024年会员订阅收入44.6亿元，同比增长22.2%。

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透过财报和几大平台近两年的布局可以看出，在线音乐已经从争抢版权市场，进入巩固音乐生态的新阶段，各家展现的核心优势以及重点加强的竞争壁垒，也是国内在线音乐未来一段时期竞争与发展的关键。

01 用AI留住更多听众

两大音乐巨头的财报都提及了AI技术对业绩提升的帮助，随着人工智能技术的飞速迭代和应用场景的日益扩展，AI世界即将迎来更大的变革和新一轮的角力，这也将为在线音乐带来新的创意与活力，催生出更多的应用场景和商业机会。

财报显示，受益于会员订阅人数快速增长，网易云音乐核心业务业绩明显改善，2024年全年净利润增一倍。公司近日还宣布完成DeepSeek R1大模型的全能力接入，AI创作能力得以升级。

腾讯音乐同样基于AI技术提效进行了同步焕新，春节以来腾讯旗下系列产品都在密集接入外部模型DeepSeek-R，其中，腾讯音乐集成了DeepSeek大语言模型优化推荐算法，提升个性化体验；推出 AI 伴奏、虚拟社区（如时代少年团粉丝社区）等功能，进一步增强用户黏性。

这两年，AI技术正在重塑音乐流媒体的核心竞争维度，从内容生产看，AI带来的变革对于当红歌手和在线音乐平台来说都是突破现有创作与版权瓶颈的契机。

2025年央视春晚中，机器人舞蹈《秧BOT》火爆出圈，这个节目的伴奏音乐并非人类创作，而是AI通过分析近百年春节民俗音乐后生成的“电子国潮”作品。事实上，随着多种模型工具不断迭代升级，AI在音乐创作中扮演着越来越重要的作用。如AI快速生成适配游戏场景、影视OST的定制化音乐，都能降低对外部作曲家的依赖，用低成本丰富在线音乐平台曲库。

近日，歌曲《七天爱人》连续霸榜网易云音乐榜单，抖音相关话题播放量超2亿次，这首歌的特别之处并非是旋律有多惊艳，而是因为这是一首DeepSeek创作的AI作品。评论区不少网友称赞“整首歌旋律流畅、歌词优雅，方文山看了估计都得挠头”，虽然歌曲整体还缺乏突破性旋律设计，有“流水线情歌”的味道，其艺术高度尚未达到人类顶尖创作者的水平，但已经能够满足市场对标准化情感消费品的需求。

《七天爱人》的火爆出圈标志着AI音乐已突破“技术可用性”门槛。接下来，通过AI批量生产广场舞神曲、车载DJ音乐等垂类内容，抢占传统唱片公司忽视的长尾市场将为在线音乐平台拓展更多内容和价值增量。同时，AI歌曲与虚拟人IP绑定后也能制造更具情感投射的虚拟偶像，进一步增强平台的用户粘性。

在用户体验层面，AI技术赋能的智能推荐算法也成为各大在线音乐平台的产品杀手锏。

多模态推荐引擎通过整合用户听歌记录、社交互动、线下场景（车载、运动模式）数据，可以生成“千人千面”播放列表。

随着它们对用户的了解越来越多，它推荐的曲目将越来越对用户胃口，需要用户输入的内容指令也越来越少，这种不断迭代升级、真正懂得用户的个性化推荐一旦体验之后就很难离开。

通过将DeepSeek等大语言模型集成到歌曲创作功能，并融入AI助手、评论区、推荐页等场景，AI一方面激发了用户的音乐创作热情，丰富了平台内容生态。

另一方面则用全方位的个性化音乐体验，提升了用户的付费意愿。

腾讯音乐财报显示，2024年在线音乐付费用户数增长至1.21亿，同比增长13.4%，其中推荐播放份额显著提升，用户歌曲收藏量同比增长10%，Q4用户参与度及单个付费用户月均收入均稳步提升。

2025年，腾讯音乐利用AI来实现内容创新、增强个性化服务，为用户带来更多新鲜的音乐体验，将成为在线音乐平台发展的重要动能。

02 “后版权”时代，差异化体验至关重要

虽然各大平台都在积极拥抱AI技术，也都强调用户体验的重要性，但目前各自都凭借独特的资源和技术形成了差异化优势。

“后版权”时代，借助AI解决用户音乐消费的各种痛点，提供多元化、更优质、更独特的音乐体验，已经成为各大音乐平台的重要课题。

许多人之所以选择QQ音乐，无外乎音乐曲库、音质以及更成熟的会员分层体系这三大理由。

在各大在线音乐平台中，QQ音乐已经覆盖90%以上华语热门歌曲，数量最多种类最全，同时还拥有周杰伦、五月天、BTS等顶流歌手独家版权。推出的“臻品音质”（24bit/192kHz）和“银河音效”，也满足了发烧友需求。

在此基础上，QQ音乐以分层服务和场景化权益为核心，形成了多维度、差异化的会员体系，豪华绿钻、SVIP以及设备专属会员细分对应不同需求、权益和音乐消费场景。

如何寻找会员增值空间与用户权益之间的平衡点，进行更精细化分层运营，将是QQ音乐未来一段时期拓展增量的一个关键点。

此外，QQ音乐的粉丝权益和多样玩法也是吸引用户的一大亮点。粉丝打榜、明星空降、周边抽奖、一键跳转K歌功能、虚拟演出等玩法，将进一步加固QQ音乐的版权+全场景娱乐壁垒。

不过，QQ音乐也有自己的短板，社区氛围相对较弱，用户更倾向于“听歌工具”而非社交互动，评论区活跃度并不算高，而社交这一点正好是网易云音乐的优势。

网易云音乐的社区文化和长尾内容一直是吸引用户的最大亮点之一，最初以“评论区故事”出圈后，网易云音乐用户的UGC互动活跃度一直遥遥领先。平台打造的“云村”社区生态独具特色，动态广场以乐评为核心，用户可通过评论互动形成强社交联结。

独特的“热评文化”成为用户情感表达的载体，热门歌曲评论区常出现高赞故事性留言，这种UGC内容持续增强了用户归属感和粘性。

在内容方面，虽然不及QQ音乐曲库这么全，但网易云音乐覆盖超50万原创音乐人，小众风格曲库丰富，能更好满足垂类乐迷需求。

接下来，能否解决这几年网易云在头部歌手版权上进步不大、在广告上变本加厉这两大痛点，尤为关键。

两大巨头做大后求稳式“守成”，给了华为音乐和汽水音乐这两个后起之秀破局的机会。

汽水音乐足够精准的个性化推荐算法，和抖音联动实现的热歌同步更新无缝跳转、更低的会员价格以及复刻抖音交互逻辑的体验，都让其成为抖音撬动音乐行业的一根杠杆，随着用户数快速膨胀，汽水音乐在抖音内容生态中的价值越来越大。

华为音乐精准解决了在线音乐软件在社交化的道路上越走越远，功能臃肿不堪这个痛点，用更简洁的纯音乐体验吸引了一大波用户。

此外，硬件生态实现的全场景覆盖和无损音质，也走在了行业前面。

03 从“听音乐”到“音乐+”生态

腾讯音乐发布的年度财报显示，2024年调整后净利润81.4亿元，同比增长30.7%。

利润大增主要由音乐订阅收入、广告服务收入的强劲增长推动，其中订阅服务贡献了152.3亿元收入，同比增长25.9%。

而订阅服务之所以大增，一方面得益于付费会员量增，全年净增1300万至1.21亿。

另一方面得益于价提，单用户月收入同比提升3.7%至11.1元。

可以看出，腾讯音乐付费用户数增长逻辑并非过去的“以价换量”，而是通过优质内容供给与“音乐+”生态的构建，实现了体验升级与场景延伸，最终驱动了付费转化，实现SVIP渗透率和ARPPU良性双提升。

通过与刀郎、罗大佑等经典歌手合作，如《2002年的第一场雪》20周年重启演唱会等，腾讯音乐激活了中老年用户群体的付费意愿。

此后推出的“影音+”共创模式，将音乐与影视IP深度融合，《庆余年第二季》《玫瑰的故事》《玉盘》等作品的OST内容既为影视引流，又反向带动音乐播放量暴涨，形成了腾讯内容消费闭环。此外，针对高价值用户推出的超级会员（SVIP），提供AI音效优化、高清演唱会观看、车载场景特权等差异化权益，全域覆盖用户生活场景。通过将“听歌工具”升级为“音乐生活方式入口”，QQ音乐用户日均使用时长从60分钟提升至90分钟，“音乐+”生态的价值和潜力已经初步显现。

事实上，正在步入“流媒体2.0时代”的在线音乐，不再是简单的版权内容之争，而是 “技术+场景+社区”的立体竞争，生态力将取代版权力，成为最重要的增长引擎和构建差异化壁垒的核心。

多位业内人和投资机构预测，2025年中国在线音乐行业将继续保持增长势头，但发展模式将从高速扩张转向结构性优化，核心驱动力逐渐转向技术创新、场景拓展和用户价值深挖。

以音乐为核心，通过技术赋能、场景融合、跨界合作和用户分层，谁能率先打造覆盖“内容生产-消费体验-衍生服务”的全链条生态体系，谁就能在下一轮竞争中赢得未来。

2024年，腾讯音乐、网易云、汽水音乐在拼什么？“听歌报告”刷屏，华为音乐年度榜单为何“与众不同”？软硬协同下，华为音乐交出“极致”答卷

撰文：陈桐 编辑：美圻

本文由人人都是产品经理作者【文娱价值官】，微信公众号：【文娱价值官】，原创/授权 发布于人人都是产品经理，未经许可，禁止转载。

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