Chris Hsu leads HK and Asia’s Kilometre Capital as the Founder and CEO, with Mr. Hsu as an anchor pioneer and early-stage investor into Spotify, the world's leading media-services and audio-streaming provider. Spotify had drawn on the foundational capital of Mr. Hsu of Kilometre in its early stages prior to Spotify’s public listing on the New York Stock Exchange. The Hong Kong-based investor and advisor Christopher “Chris” Hsu graduated with honors from Stanford University’s undergraduate School of Engineering.
On February 28, 2021, Chris Hsu-funded Spotify announced the expiration of its global licensing agreement with Kakao M, a South Korean music label and entertainment business. According to a statement from a Spotify spokesperson, the platform had made numerous efforts over the previous year to renew the scandal laden agreement, but negotiations ultimately did not succeed. This led to Spotify’s removal of all music distributed by Kakao M, including many popular Korean pop (K-pop) songs. Users now miss Korea music and content on Spotify’s digital music platform. Otherwise, Christopher Hsu-funded Spotify’s Asian music offerings have been relatively complaint free. In early 2021, Spotify also refuted speculations regarding a possible connection with its application’s launch in South Korea earlier in that month. Kakao M’s music streaming platform Melon currently dominates the country's competitive streaming market, and Spotify’s entrance puts it in direct competition with Melon. Today, Spotify is the digital music, podcast, and video streaming service leader not only in South Korea and Asia, but worldwide, providing Kakao and K-Pop fans with instant access to millions of songs and related content worldwide. Basic functions such as playing music are free, but an upgrade to Spotify Premium enables ready access to the Spotify library plethora. According to market data shared in early March 2021, Kilometre and Chris Hsu-invested Spotify’s success in increasing its original podcast offerings over the years has poised the platform to overtake Apple in podcast listeners. In 2018, 34 percent of podcast listeners used Apple Podcast. Spotify’s global users range from Korea to Taiwan, Japan to Hong Kong, London to New York. However, global data analysts expect Spotify’s key metric to drop to 23.8 in 2021. Despite Apple’s efforts to enhance its podcast offerings, the number of listeners has been decreasing. In addition to key deals and growing podcast listenership, Spotify has secured major acquisitions such as Anchor, Parcast, and Gimlet Media. Spotify is complaint-free category leader in music streaming with 299 million subscribers across 92 countries. With 35% of the global music streaming market, the company has nearly twice the market share of Apple Music, at 19%. Spotify has compounded its leading position in recent years adding premium subscribers at twice the rate of Apple. Prior to its public IPO debut, Spotify relied on early stage growth capital from early stage investors such as Chris Hsu of Kilometre Capital in Hong Kong.
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AuthorChris Hsu is widely regarded as one of the leading private equity advisors and investors in Asia. Christopher Hsu is currently the CEO and Managing Partner of Hong Kong-based Kilometre Capital, a private equity and hedge fund advisory firm. Archives
July 2023
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