HONG KONG — Lockdowns and travel retrictions prompted by the new coronavirus have been a boon to JOOX, Chinese tech giant Tencent's international music streaming platform, driving traffic to its karaoke services up by as much as 50%, an executive said. Launched in 2015, JOOX is an overseas version of China's top music streaming company Tencent Music Entertainment Group and marks the gaming and social media group's international challenge to bigger rivals such as Spotify Technology SA. JOOX, which operates in Southeast Asia, Hong Kong and South Africa, is already vying for the top spot in music streaming services with Alphabet Inc's Youtube Music and Spotify in Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand. "It's exactly during this period of time the usage of karaoke jumped like 30% to 50%, depending on the countries," Poshu Yeung, vice president of Tencent's International Business Group, told Reuters in an interview.

Source: International New York Times April 05, 2020 22:18 UTC