Tencent Music Entertainment (1698) saw its first-half net profit plunge 31.9 percent year-on-year to 4.56 billion yuan (HK$4.92 billion), though adjusted net profit grew 5.6 percent to 4.96 billion yuan.
The steep decline in unadjusted profit was attributed to a high base from the previous year, which recorded a 2.38 billion yuan one-off investment gain compared to just 30 million yuan this year. However, for the second quarter alone, net profit edged up 2.6 percent to 2.47 billion yuan.
Despite this, the company's total revenues for the six months ended June 30 climbed 6.5 percent to 16.83 billion yuan, with overall gross margin improving slightly by 0.3 percentage points to 44.5 percent.
This top-line growth was primarily fueled by an 11.5 percent jump in music-related services to 14.12 billion yuan. Within this segment, membership revenues expanded 7.4 percent to 9.36 billion yuan, which the company attributed to the integration of Ximalaya and a growing super VIP user base.
Conversely, revenue from social entertainment and other services decreased by 13.7 percent to 2.71 billion yuan in the first half.
