Formed in 2008 and subsequently bought by the Alibaba Group 5 years later, Xiami Music will have bragging rights to being the first streaming service in China to adopt MQA, sending a clear signal to artists and creators alike.  

MQA (Master-Quality Authenticated) music will appear in the SVIP tier of Xiami Music iOS and Android apps.  

All users will be offered a free trial for a limited period, and can then subscribe to the SVIP tier to continue to access all MQA music.  

This news is a big deal for the British audio company as China is already the fourth largest market for sales of MQA devices, even before the existence of a domestic MQA-enabled music service. We expect that this new partnership can only further boost the sales of partner products.  

Moreover, as the Alibaba Group owns market-leading e-commerce platforms in China which attract 654 million annual active consumers, the Xiami Music service not only has an ideal placement within the market, it also has access to Alibaba's full resources, including all the latest technology and music entertainment insight from across its Taobao, Tmall, Alipay and Youku platforms.

That said, Xiami Music has maintained its culture of innovation and creativity since its beginnings as a startup. Furthermore, it has garnered a reputation for supporting independent artists and respecting sound quality so, hopefully, that aspect will remain.

The streaming service has an intelligent AI recommendation tool, while music fans actively engage in encouraging music discovery; the platform has attracted over 40,000 independent musicians, and its library contains over 500 million playlists and 20 million songs.

Long Yang, Director of Xiami Music, told StereoNET:

We are very proud to be the first music service in China to offer MQA, as we continue to push the technological boundaries in pursuit of improved sound quality to benefit our music fans and all musicians on our platform.

Mike Jbara, MQA's CEO, added,

MQA is a consumer-centric technology company, driven by a commitment to deliver the master recording all the way through to the music fan, wherever and however they choose to listen – and it was clear from our first meeting that the Xiami team shared our vision.  Many of MQA's current device partners have successful and growing relationships within Alibaba's e-commerce businesses, so this collaboration is the perfect platform on which to create a complete MQA ecosystem for the Chinese consumer market.

In a relatively short period, licensed music streaming services such as Xiami Music have revitalised the Chinese recorded music market, which now ranks seventh in revenue terms internationally.  In terms of music streaming income, China is the fourth largest global market, behind only the US, UK and Germany, according to a 2019 IFPI Global Music Report.