Tencent Music misses first-quarter revenue estimates, shares fall

(Reuters) – China’s Tencent Music Entertainment Group missed Wall Street estimates for quarterly revenue on Monday as the coronavirus crisis impacted the company’s social entertainment services business, sending its shares down more than 3% in extended trade.

Monthly average revenue per paying user from its social entertainment services fell 12.9% to 111.1 yuan ($15.65). It reported 256 million users for the segment during the quarter, a rise of 13.3% from a year earlier.

“While acknowledging the impact on our social entertainment services from the COVID-19 pandemic, we have started to see a moderate recovery recently,” Chief Executive Officer Cussion Pang said in a statement.

Paid users of the company’s online music service jumped 50.4% to 42.7 million in the quarter.

Revenue of the company, controlled by Chinese tech giant Tencent Holdings Ltd , rose about 10% to 6.31 billion yuan ($889.08 million) in the first quarter ended March 31, while analysts were expecting 6.33 billion yuan, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.

Excluding items, the company reported a profit of 0.66 yuan per American depository share (ADS), above estimates of 0.63 yuan per ADS.

(Reporting by Akanksha Rana in Bengaluru and Pei Li; Editing by Shailesh Kuber)