Tencent, the Chinese tech powerhouse, has officially announced its intention to list its spun-out music-streaming business in the U.S.
The prospect of a Tencent Music flotation has been floating around since last year, and in April it was reported that the plan could value the Spotify rival at over $25 billion.
Now Tencent has made the plan official, saying in a Monday Hong Kong announcement that it intended to spin off Tencent Music and list it in the U.S.
Tencent said it was yet to announce the size of the offering and its price range, and it still needed approval for the listing from regulators and Tencent’s board. However, according to reports in China, the company is likely to achieve a valuation in the range of $29-31 billion.
That’s quite similar to Spotify’s $30 billion valuation at the time of its IPO in April. While Spotify and Tencent Music are rivals of a sort, they are also mutual investors—Tencent Music owns 7.5% of Spotify, which in turn owns 9% of Tencent Music.
According to CNN, Tencent Music’s various apps have around 600 million users in China, though only 15 million are paying subscribers. Spotify has more than 75 million paid subscribers, 20 million of whom are in the U.S. Local rival Apple Music has about the same number, though it is reportedly just ahead of Spotify in that regard.
Tencent spun out and listed—in Hong Kong—its ebook unit last year, in a flotation that raised $1.1 billion.
