SINGAPORE — KKBOX, the Taiwan-based cloud music service provider which recently received a US$104 million (S$130 million) investment from sovereign wealth fund GIC, is looking at Singapore as an important market where it can pilot its offerings for South-east Asia.

Already Asia’s leading music streaming platform with more than 10 million users, KKBOX is gearing up for an aggressive expansion in the region, amid increasing competition from global players such as Spotify.

In an exclusive interview with TODAY, Mr Alex Wang, managing director for KKBOX in the Asia-Pacific, said: “Despite its small size, Singapore is a sophisticated market with a mature post-paid digital consumption culture … This is where we want to pilot our new offerings — such as KKBOX Live, our live concert webcast service that’s only available in Taiwan now — before pushing them to other neighbouring markets.”

The company has two million paying subscribers across Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand, and is seeking to boost those numbers by entering the Philippines, Vietnam and Indonesia, Asia’s third-most populous country.

“There’s no timeline for entry yet, but regional expansion is high on our agenda now that we’ve secured more funding,” Mr Wang said.

GIC’s investment late last month will help KKBOX fund its expansion plans as well as enhance its technology and service, Mr Chris Lin, co-founder and chief exective of KKBOX, said in a statement then.

“In terms of technology, our focus is on big data capabilities. Our database has about 20 million songs and only a small portion is accessed by our users,” Mr Wang told TODAY. “We want to strengthen our big data analysis on user preference of tracks and genres, which then allows us to build and refine our services and functions around those findings.”

GIC’s investment is a vote of confidence in Asia’s growing appetite for digital media consumption. In Taiwan alone, KKBOX users listen to songs on the streaming platform up to 15 million times daily, Mr Wang said, adding that the number hits hundreds of thousands, even in smaller markets such as Singapore.

This momentum has allowed KKBOX to increase its revenue by 30 to 40 per cent annually since 2010, and the pace may pick up further as the popularity of smartphones broadens access to digital media content.

“Online music is about listening on the go and smartphones feed right into that trend. The proportion of our users listening on their smartphones reaches 70 per cent in Taiwan and 90 per cent in Singapore,” Mr Wang said. “I have no doubt these numbers will continue to rise in all our markets as technology brings larger mobile bandwidth and lower data costs.”

But KKBOX’s market leadership in Asia — due partly to what is reportedly the world’s biggest collection of Chinese songs — will face increasing competition from global players such as Deezer and Spotify, which set up its Asian headquarters in Singapore just last month.

However, Mr Wang is not concerned, as he is confident that KKBOX’s approach to delivering market-specific content will help it stand out from its competitors. “Take what we’re doing in Singapore, for example. Our editors will craft the local content around theme songs of popular television dramas or songs that have just been performed by contestants of the Voice Of China,” he said, referring to an ongoing popular reality television show. “We will also upload track lists of concerts in Singapore, so local fans of the artistes can relive the experience afterwards.”

“I believe this is also why GIC invested in us — our services and offerings are entrenched in all the markets we’re in,” he added. “So our competitors are not the other players. Our biggest competitor is piracy.”

Mr Wang’s comments came as a survey by consumer research firm Sycamore last month showed that music piracy is rampant in the region, with half of Internet users surveyed in Singapore, and 60 per cent of Taiwan’s netizens, admitting to having downloaded music illegally.

“Our strategy against piracy entails close partnerships with artistes. For instance, our Listen With function allows users to listen to the same songs that their favourite artistes are listening to right now on KKBOX. Many new songs are also debuted on KKBOX these days. In fact, A-Mei (Zhang Hui Mei) just held her album launch in July, not at a press conference, but on KKBOX,” he said.