HYBE’s superfan platform Weverse is making significant inroads into China through strategic partnerships with two of the market’s digital giants: Tencent Music Entertainment and Alibaba. These moves mark a pivotal moment in HYBE’s international expansion strategy, as the company confirmed that Weverse reached a record high of 11.6 million monthly active users (MAUs) globally in Q3 2025. This represented 20% year-over-year growth for Weverse, which received an undisclosed investment from Universal Music Group last year.
Last Thursday (November 6), Weverse announced its new collaboration with QQ Music, China’s largest music streaming platform owned by Tencent Music Entertainment. This partnership enables Chinese users to seamlessly access Weverse content and engage with their favorite artists. The tie-up eliminates barriers that previously complicated access for Chinese fans, creating a more integrated and user-friendly experience.
The second part of Weverse’s China expansion is the launch of a flagship Weverse Shop on Tmall, the e-commerce platform operated by digital giant Alibaba, earlier this year. The Tmall Weverse store, launched in June, sells official merchandise and light sticks for 17 Weverse artists. This provides Chinese consumers with authenticated products through one of the country’s most trusted retail channels.
The Tmall venture has already proven successful. In just five months of operation, the Weverse Shop earned Tmall’s “2025 Supernova Brand” award, a recognition given to overseas brands demonstrating strong sales performance, rapid growth, high search volume, and positive customer reviews.
HYBE CEO Jason Jae-sang Lee explained the company’s measured approach to the Chinese market during an earnings call with investors on November 10. The company’s strategy in China minimizes direct investment and operational challenges by leveraging the established infrastructure and user bases of Tencent and Alibaba.
“Rather than putting in our resources directly, we have been utilizing corporate partnerships. And so we have not been trying to maximize profits coming from China, but we understand that there are so many Chinese fans who love and support our artists,” Lee said.
He added, “We decided to partner with QQ Music, the strongest streaming platform in China, as well as Tmall, so that more Chinese fans can engage with our artists more actively. So it was more of a company-to-company partnership. And such partnerships are already receiving very positive responses.”
Lee also revealed that “in addition to the currently available Weverse DM,” HYBE is “discussing additional services to be available on these platforms.” He emphasized, “So in China, we’re not aggressive yet, but we are continuing to look for and implement solutions that can best serve our fans in China.”
Weverse’s expansion into China comes as the platform continues to experience strong growth globally. HYBE CEO Lee attributed the recent uplift in MAUs primarily to BTS members actively returning to the platform following their military service obligations, combined with diverse global activities by artists on Weverse.
China represents a crucial market for HYBE’s expansion ambitions, and the statistics reveal why. China’s two biggest music streaming providers, Tencent Music Entertainment (TME) and NetEase Cloud Music (NCM), accounted for around 171 million paying users combined at the end of 2024. Over 25 million paying music subscribers were added in China in 2024 alone, according to senior industry sources—compared to just 3.2 million added in the USA.
China is also rapidly gaining global market share in music streaming subscription revenues. According to IFPI data, China’s annual streaming subscription revenues surpassed USD $1 billion in 2024, up 18.9% year-over-year. In doing so, China surpassed Germany to become the world’s third-largest music streaming subscription market. MBW has previously predicted that China may leapfrog the world’s second-largest subscription market, the UK, by 2026.
Earlier this year, HYBE officially launched HYBE China, a subsidiary based in Beijing to support artist activities in the country, further underscoring the company’s commitment to strengthening its presence in this vital market.
https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/hybes-weverse-superfan-platform-is-growing-and-going-big-in-china/
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