New Sony/Tencent dance music label Liquid State taps into Asia’s $1b EDM sector

Sony Music and China’s electronic dance music empire Tencent have gone into a joint venture with dance music label; Liquid State.

Launched this week at a gala event in Hong Kong. it will be tapping into Asia’s rapidly growing $1 billion EDM scene by signing up original Asian acts and supporting the growing amount of western EDM acts making an impact in Asia.

Liquid State will also incorporate live touring, club events and “special exclusive experiences.”

Denis Handlin AO, Chairman & CEO, Australia & New Zealand and President Asia, Sony Music Entertainment, comments, “These are exciting times for the music industry and Liquid State has been created to support and enhance the discovery and development of electronic and EDM talent across the Asia region.

“Together we will make Liquid State the destination for a wide range of highly talented new and established global and local artists.”

Cussion Pang, CEO of Tencent Music Entertainment Group added, “With the formation of Liquid State, our goal is to create an unmatched culture exchange between the East and the West through the power of electronic dance music.

“It is a music genre like no other, and together with Sony Music Entertainment, we aim to build a win-win solution for all of our stakeholders and believe that the collaboration will give birth to some truly memorable moments in both the music and culture sectors for years to come.”

Sony’s first major foray into the Asian EDM market has done it right.

First, there is its choice of Tencent as a partner in the venture.

Tencent is a US$500 billion Chinese tech company which recently overtook Facebook to become the world’s fifth most valuable listed company.

Such is the growth of the Chinese music industry that it’s expected to leap from its 2015 value of $170 million to $47 billion by 2020.

A Nielsen study from September 2017 on EDM in the Asia-Pacific region found that 64% of respondents in China listened to EDM, and 74% in Korea.

Analysts estimate that two-thirds of the Chinese population use Tencent’s digital services, and spend 1.7 billion hours a day on its apps.

Tencent can effectively market its acts through its streaming service QQ Music (800 million users, 10 million subscribers), Kugou Music and Kuwo Music services as well as its messaging app WeChat (1 billion users), Tencent Video (40 million paying subscribers) and QZone.

Secondly, last year a panel discussion by eastern and European/US EDM executives at IMS conference in Shanghai on how to grow Asia’s EDM market concluded that the most effective way was collaborations between eastern and western acts.

Liquid State has launched with 20-year old Norwegian born Alan Walker, one of Sony’s biggest global names.

His breakthrough single ‘Faded’ from 2015 sold 9.4 million units worldwide and streamed 1.6 billion times on digital platforms.

He is massive in Asia: in 2017, he took #1 spot on the QQ Music charts with a record number of six billion audio streams.

This year Walker will release a string of exclusive collaborations on the label.

“Asia has always been such a special place for me so I’m thrilled to be here today to help Sony Music and Tencent with the launch of Liquid State,” Walker says.

“They have each played such a huge role in my career so far.

“Now that they are joining forces, I’m convinced that Liquid State will grow to play a significant role in breaking new artists from Asia on a global scale, as well as enabling international artists to unleash the huge potential that lies within the Asian market.”

In addition to Walker, Liquid State’s initial roster includes Grammy-nominated Chinese American global star ZHU (already signed to Sony’s Columbia Records for outside Asia) and multi-award winning Dubai based duo Hollaphonic, both set to release music through the label in the coming months.

China’s DJ Lizzy and Korean duo Junkilla are the first artists from the Asia region to be signed to Liquid State.

Liquid State has also signed Chinese pop superstar Chris Lee as ambassador for Chinese mainland, singer and actor Nicholas Tse as ambassador for Hong Kong and Taiwan, and Seungri from boy band phenomenon BIGBANG for South Korea.

Tencent has enjoyed long-standing relationships and successes with all three.