 Alibaba Group's Xiami Music is the first music streaming service in China to add music quality audioAlibaba Group-owned Xiami Music has adopted high-quality audio technology MQA, making it the first streaming service in China to do so.
MQA?s technology
is known for capturing the sound of the original studio performance, the U.K. company said, and delivering it in a file small enough to stream or download on any device, from smartphones to high-end home audio systems.
Now, SVIP-level subscribers of Xiami in China using the iOS and Android apps will have access to songs at MQA quality. All users will be offered a free trial for a limited period to decide if they want to subscribe to the SVIP tier for continued access to MQA music.
?MQA is a consumer-centric technology company, driven by a commitment to deliver the master recording all the way through to the music fan, wherever and however they choose to listen ? and it was clear from our first meeting that the Xiami team shared our vision,? MQA CEO Mike Jbara said.
?Many of MQA?s current device partners have successful and growing relationships within Alibaba?s e-commerce businesses, so this collaboration is the perfect platform on which to create a complete MQA ecosystem for the Chinese consumer market,? he said.
China is the fourth-largest market for sales of MQA devices, even though there was no domestic MQA-enabled music service before the company?s deal with Xiami. In terms of music-streaming income, China is the fourth-largest global market, behind only the U.S., U.K. and Germany, according to the most recent IFPI Global Music Report.
Xiami currently hosts more than 40,000 independent musicians, with a library of over 500 million playlists and 20 million songs. Launched in 2008, Alibaba bought the company five years later and used its proprietary technology to boost its services to users. Among them, Xiami offers an artificial-intelligence recommendation tool to encourage music discovery on the platform, something that is important given its focus on artists outside of the mainstream. Eighty percent of users are between the ages of 20 and 29.
?We are very proud to be the first music service in China to offer MQA, as we continue to push the technological boundaries in pursuit of improved sound quality to benefit our music fans and all musicians on our platform,? Xiami Music Director Long Yang said. |
