Alibaba will be shutting down its music streaming platform Xiami Music next month. With this, it will step back from its ambitious aim to enter China's entertainment industry.
According to a report by LiveMint, Alibaba's music arm announced the news via social media platform Weibo.
"Due to operational adjustments, we will stop the service of Xiami Music from February 5," it said.
In 2013, Alibaba had invested millions into the app in order to compete in China's massive music industry. However, these efforts had not paid off.
Xiami Music occupies only 2 percent of China's music streaming market. It lags behind KuGou Music, QQ Music, KuWo, and NetEase Cloud Music, according to Beijing-headquartered data intelligence company TalkingData, the report said.
In December, Chinese regulators ordered Ant Group, the world’s largest financial technology company, to rectify its businesses and comply with regulatory requirements amid increased scrutiny of anti-monopoly practices in the country’s internet sector.
Ant Group, which started out as a payments services for Alibaba’s e-commerce platform Taobao, has since expanded to offer insurance and investment products to its hundreds of millions of users in mainland China. Jack Ma, the founder of both Alibaba and Ant Group, is one of China’s richest and most prominent entrepreneurs.