Differentiated Breakthrough: An Effectiveness Study of NetEase Cloud Music’s “Music + Social + Original Content” Ecosystem Positioning — Based on User Retention and Paid Conversion

Main Article Content

Jinshuo Zhang
School of Accounting, Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, Chengdu 611130, China

DOI: https://doi.org/10.70267/icbms.2601.147153

Keywords

music streaming industry, NetEase cloud music, Niche competition, differentiated development

Abstract

NetEase Cloud Music launched its app in 2013 and quickly emerged as a dark horse competitor within just a few years. Today, it has grown into one of China's leading music streaming platforms. In China's fiercely competitive music streaming market, NetEase Cloud Music has carved out a niche through its differentiated strategy centered on “Music + Social + Original Content.” This single-case study examines the synergistic mechanism between ecological niche competition and differentiated development, verifying its impact on user engagement, emotional stickiness, retention rates, and payment rates. Findings reveal that the emotional connections fostered by “playlist UGC + music comment socialization” and the original content ecosystem supported by the “Stone Project” collectively offset the platform's copyright disadvantage. This synergy effectively enhances metrics such as the daily active users to monthly active users ratio (DAU/MAU) and paid subscription rates. This research fills a gap in studying macro-level ecological niche competition among music streaming platforms, providing practical insights for industry differentiation strategies.

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Published
Apr 14, 2026
Conference Proceedings Volume
Vol. 13 (2026): Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Business, Management and Sustainability (ICBMS 2026)
Section
Articles
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

How to Cite

Jinshuo Zhang. “Differentiated Breakthrough: An Effectiveness Study of NetEase Cloud Music’s ‘Music + Social + Original Content’ Ecosystem Positioning — Based on User Retention and Paid Conversion”. Exploring Science Academic Conference Series, vol. 13, Apr. 2026, pp. 147-53, https://doi.org/10.70267/icbms.2601.147153.