KKBox, a streaming music service operating mainly in Taiwan and Hong Kong, has announced plans for a US launch in the third quarter of this year, looking to bring Chinese-language music to the US’ population of Chinese speakers.
KKBox is a freemium service, much like Pandora or Spotify, and currently has more than 6 million users of its service. Roughly 200,000 of these users are premium members, paying around $5 per month for fuller songs and less advertising. The free version of the service does not include full tracks, but mainly has song clips and basic artist information. The company says its US users may originally be restricted to a premium offering, which it will keep under $10 per month.
KKBox has seen a fair chunk of its success come from a deal with mobile access provider Hutchison Telecom, which bundles the streaming service with contracts of iPhone users. KKBox said roughly 50% of these users have become paid subscribers. This is a much better rate of conversion than it sees through its existing PC client.
While the Asia version contains both Chinese and Western songs, the US offering will only feature Chinese-language content published through mostly independent Chinese labels.
KKBox is also expecting to launch in Malaysia and Singapore, but dates on these launches are not set. It also plans to pursue a roll-out to the mainland of China by 2011, though concerns of piracy and new rivals — perhaps Spotify — could push the service to change structure for the mainland and to up its content offering. |
