Tencent Music Entertainment Group’s (TME) quarterly net profit surged by more than 50% for the quarter ending in June on the strength of its online music business, sending its stock up 5% in mid-day trading on Wednesday.

Net profit for TME’s second quarter was RMB1.30 billion ($179 million), up 51.6% from second quarter last year, the Chinese company reported on Tuesday. Total revenues rose 5.5% to RMB7.29 billion ($1.01 billion) in the quarter ending June 30, as a more paying subscribers helped the online music business contribute more than half of TME’s earnings for the first time since the company’s launch in 2016.

TME is growing increasingly focused on its music business, and its company promotions which resulted in a record high of 99.4 million paying users this quarter, are paying off, executives say.

“As we continue driving the healthy development of China’s online music industry, we have seen users become increasingly accustomed and willing to pay for copyrighted music, whether for songs they want to listen to or for premium listening features they enjoy,” TME executive chairman Cussion Pang said on Tuesday. “This marks a significant step along TME’s growth trajectory.”

Quarterly revenue from online music services jumped nearly 50% to RMB4.25 billion (US$586 million) on strong music subscription revenue growth and advertising services and contributed more than 58% of the company’s total revenues.

The number of monthly active users for online music fell nearly 5% to 594 million in the second quarter this year from 623 million in the year-ago quarter, but the number of paying online music users rose more than 20% to 99.4 million from 82.7 million a year ago.

Revenues from music subscriptions grew 37% to RMB2.89 billion ($399 million). 

TME’s social entertainment business, which it has de-emphasized for the last several quarters in a row, saw mobile monthly active users fall 18% to 136 million from 166 million, while paying social entertainment users also declined 5% to 7.5 from 7.9.

Monthly average revenue per paying user (ARPPU) rose 14% to RMB9.7 ($1.33) for online music, while monthly ARPPU for social entertainment declined 20% to RMB135 ($18.50).

Tencent Music executives said they are in the process of deploying several service enhancement and risk control measures that will promote music-centric live streaming, which they expect to put pressure on TME’s social entertainment services revenues throughout the rest of 2023.

“TME remains confident about delivering year-over-year net profit growth for 2023, driven by the continued strong performance of online music services, laying a much more solid foundation for the company’s healthy and resilient development in the long run,” a spokesperson said.