Paying to become a member of a video platform has gradually become mainstream in China, at least for the younger generations.
Consumer behaviors have been changing from searching for free sources (as there are fewer of them now than before) to paying for high quality and hassle-free subscriptions.
The leading platforms, iQiYi and Tencent Videos, have paying members exceeding 100 million in 2019 Q2 and 2019 Q3 respectively. The paying percentage is around 20% for a 500 million MAU (iQiYi 2018 Q4 MAU 454.5 million).
Alibaba’s Youku is only little behind (numbers are not disclosed).
Similar trends are found in Tencent Music and NetEase Music. While paying percentage is ~4-5%, it is picking up. Tencent Music’s online music paying users grew 42.2% yoy to 35.4 million (5.36% of 661 million MAU).
Emerging platforms like Bilibili are also seeing more paying users percentage.