Alibaba pulls the plug on music streaming platform
Xiami has the 11th largest user base in the music streaming sector.
Alibaba's innovative business unit officially announced the closure of music streaming platform Xiami due to its weak market performance.
"After 12 years of accompanying each listener, it's hard to say goodbye!" reads a notice on its official website.
Alibaba will unplug the service on March 5, and users will no longer be able to stream, download or comment on albums and songs beginning February 5. They will have one month to transfer music streaming lists and other digital assets.
It stopped users from purchasing new digital albums and paying for membership benefits at 10am on Tuesday and started to allow music playlists to be transferred toward other music streaming service.
Streaming histories and paid memberships will be discontinued, and all relevant personal information will be removed, according to privacy rules.
Domestic consultancy iiMedia expects China's digital music market to increase to 36.8 billion yuan (US$5.4 billion) by 2023 from around 25 billion yuan in 2019, with an estimated user base of 800 million.
Online music industry watchers pointed out that online music patents caused problems for Xiami's operation model, while a lack of promotional resources led to stagnant growth in the competitive marketplace.
Xiami's active user base is the 11th largest in the music streaming sector, according to mobile application tracking service Talking Data. The top three are KuGou Music, Tencent’s QQ Music and KuWo. Both Kugou and Kuwo are Tencent affiliates.
Users of the service expressed their disappointment on social media, lamenting that the independent service lost steam while rivals managed to gain market share.
"Many independent music lovers have spent years collecting information about singers and songs on Xiami, and it's hard to find that anywhere else," said a Weibo user named "Lost Chair."
Xiami was acquired by the Alibaba Group in 2013. The original concept was to align synergies from other business affiliates of the e-commerce group.
The company hired singer, songwriter and veteran music producer Gao Xiaosong to head AliMusic, but performance of this music business segment under Alibaba hasn't been up to par.
