Alibaba Group plans to step back from its ambitions to push into China’s entertainment industry by shutting down the operations of its music streaming platform Xiami Music.
“Due to operational adjustments, we will stop the service of Xiami Music,” the online music streaming platform of the Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group confirmed on Tuesday through its Weibo account, adding that the closure will occur on February 5.
It was way back in 2013 that Alibaba Group acquired the music service by investing millions of yuan with an intention to compete in China’s online music market, which is currently being dominated by Tencent Holdings. It’s efforts turned futile since the app could secure only 2% of China’s music streaming market, behind KuGou Music, QQ Music, KuWo, and NetEase Cloud Music, according to Beijing-headquartered data intelligence company TalkingData.
Alibaba Group was already facing problems with the Chinese regulators after they launched an antitrust investigation into the Group which was operating beyond its core e-commerce business into cloud computing, financial services and artificial intelligence sectors as well.
However, this step does not mean that Alibaba has given up on online streaming market as it had invested $700 million in NetEase Cloud Music, one of its competitors, in September 2019.
