(Yicai) March 20 -- Shares of Tencent Music Entertainment Group surged after China's biggest online music platform operator reported a record quarterly net profit in the fourth quarter of last year.

Tencent Music [HKG: 1698] was trading up 10.9 percent at HKD44.35 (USD5.67) as of 2.20 p.m. in Hong Kong today. Its New York-listed stock [NYSE: TME] closed up 6.4 percent at USD11.04 yesterday.

Net profit widened nearly 14 percent to CNY1.3 billion (USD195.9 million) in the three months ended Dec. 31 from a year earlier, according to the latest annual report released yesterday by the subsidiary of Chinese internet giant Tencent Holdings. Revenue fell 7.2 percent to CNY6.9 billion, mainly because of a decline in revenue from social entertainment services.

"The fourth quarter recorded accelerated year-over-year growth in music subscription revenue, anchored by consistent increases in subscribers and average revenue per paying user," said Cussion Pang, executive chairman of Tencent Music. "Online music services' strong performance mitigated headwinds from social entertainment services and contributed to expanded quarterly net profits."

Tencent Music's revenue from online music services jumped 41 percent to CNY5 billion in the fourth quarter of last year from a year earlier, the earnings report showed. The number of paying users soared 21 percent to 106.7 million, with the average revenue per paying user up 20 percent to CNY10.70 (USD1.49).

Revenue from social entertainment services and others halved to CNY1.9 billion in the period, mainly because of adjustments to certain livestreaming interactive functions and more stringent compliance procedures, Tencent Music noted.

For the full year 2023, Tencent Music logged a net profit of CNY4.9 billion, up 34 percent from the previous year, while revenue declined 2.1 percent to CNY27.8 billion (USD3.9 billion).

Editor: Futura Costaglione