May 13 (Reuters) - China's Tencent Music Entertainment Group, beat first-quarter revenue estimates on Monday, helped by steady growth in paid subscriptions and advertising services on its Spotify-like music streaming platform.
U.S. listed shares of Tencent Music Entertainment rose 6.1% in premarket trade.
The audio entertainment platform reported revenue of 6.77 billion yuan ($935.9 million) for the quarter ended March 31, beating analysts' expectations of 6.63 billion yuan, according to LSEG data.
Revenue, however, declined 3.4% from a year earlier.
The company has bolstered its growth by capitalizing on its position as the largest Chinese music-streaming platform with an attractive licensed music library while continuing to focus on advertising services and artist merchandise.
Paying users at its online music streaming service - a key metric for the company - rose 20.2% to 113.5 million from a year earlier.
The audio entertainment platform, which operates music apps such as QQ music, Kugou music, Kuwo music and WeSing, reported a 39.2% jump in revenue from its music subscriptions to 3.62 billion yuan.
The company's revenue from online music services rose 43%, driven by solid growth in music subscription revenue.
However, revenue from its social entertainment services dropped 49.7% due to the continued impact of the government's crackdown on online gambling in 2023 and increased competition from rival NetEase's Cloud Music and Bytedance-owned short video sharing platform Douyin.
($1 = 7.2338 Chinese yuan renminbi)
