Joox

Joox (stylised in all caps) is a music streaming service owned by Tencent, launched in January 2015.^[1] Joox is the biggest music streaming app in Asian markets such as Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Thailand and also in South Africa before it was shut down in early 2022. Joox is a freemium service, providing most of its songs free, while some songs are only available for premium users, offered via paid subscriptions or by doing different tasks offered.^[2][3]

For the video link site, see Joox (video streaming).

Joox

Type of site	Music streaming
Available in	English, Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, Burmese, Indonesian, Malay, Thai
Founded	January 2015; 9 years ago (2015-01)
Headquarters	Guangdong
Owner	Tencent
Industry	Music, podcast, and video
URL	www.joox.com www.joox.co.za

In 2017, Joox launched their service in South Africa, their first non-Asian market which for an unknown reason later shut down five years later.^[4] The service now accounts for more than 50% of all music streaming app downloads in their Asian markets.^[5][6] The number of music-streaming users in Hong Kong, Macau, Malaysia, Thailand, Myanmar and Indonesia was expected to reach 87 million by 2020.^[7]

Background

Before the emergence of Joox, Tencent owned QQ Music, one of the largest music streaming and download service in China. In 2015, they introduced Joox as their expansion of music services to overseas market instead of Mainland China, starting first in Hong Kong.^[8]

Instead of providing free services by playing audio ads to users like Spotify, another major music service,^[9] Joox focused on banner ads, splash ads and other advertising methods such as category playlists and in-app skins.^[10] They claimed it as a success.^[11] Joox offered their premium VIP access to DStv subscribers free of charge. DStv is the sister company to Tencent and is the primary pay-TV provider in South Africa.^[12] In November 2021, it was announced that Joox will stop streaming in South Africa in March 2022.

See also

• QQ Music - Tencent's China market music service

References

1. "WeChat's Tencent enters music-streaming fray with Joox". Digital News Asia. 2015-06-30. Retrieved 2018-01-24.
2. "Tencent's JOOX uses curated playlists to dominate music streaming in Southeast Asia · TechNode". TechNode. 2017-01-03. Retrieved 2018-01-24.
3. Halim, Billy (2015-12-27). "JOOX : The Complete, Free, & Legal Music Streaming Apps". Medium. Retrieved 2018-01-24.
4. "Meet Joox, South Africa's newest music streaming service - Stuff". Stuff. 2017-07-04. Retrieved 2018-01-24.
5. Lee, Emma (December 22, 2016). "[Update] Sanook Online Rebranded To Tencent Thailand". TechNode. Retrieved January 2, 2017.
6. Bundgaard, Karlsson, Lau, Pereira, Tycen, Axel, Alan, Andrew (November 2016). "The beat of progress: The rise of music streaming in Asia". Digital McKinsey. Archived from the original on 2019-01-09. Retrieved 2018-01-24.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
7. Lin, Liza; Kim, Yun-Hee (2016-12-16). "Apple, Spotify Face Upstart Rival in Streaming Music: China's Tencent". Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved 2018-01-24.
8. "Tencent's Joox music streaming service proves a hit across Asia". South China Morning Post. Retrieved 2018-01-24.
9. "Joox: We don't believe in conversion through audio ads". Campaign Asia. Retrieved 2018-01-24.
10. Staff. "JOOX makes its connected audience available to marketers". Marketing Interactive. Retrieved 2018-01-24.
11. "Joox bucks audio trend | WARC". www.warc.com. Retrieved 2018-01-24.
12. "Get JOOX With DSTV". Multichoice RPilodia. Archived from the original on 2018-10-17. Retrieved 2018-10-16.