Alibaba’s Xiami Music First to Offer MQA

Xiami Music, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Alibaba Group, will become the first music streaming service to offer MQA, a pioneering technology delivering authenticated master-quality music in a file small enough to stream. MQA’s technology enables top quality streaming of music on all devices, ranging from smartphones to high-end home speaker systems. All subscribers will have access to MQA for a limited free trial, after which they can upgrade to Xiami’s SVIP tier to continue streaming in music in the best available quality.

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Long Yang, Director of Xiami Music said, “We are very proud to be the first music service in China to offer MQA, as we continue to push the technological boundaries in pursuit of improved sound quality to benefit our music fans and all musicians on our platform.”

Xiami Music to be the first to offer MQA
Xiami Music to be the first to offer MQA (screenshot from Xiami Music)

Mike Jbara, MQA’s CEO, added, “MQA is a consumer-centric technology company, driven by a commitment to deliver the master recording all the way through to the music fan, wherever and however they choose to listen – and it was clear from our first meeting that the Xiami team shared our vision. Many of MQA’s current device partners have successful and growing relationships within Alibaba’s e-commerce businesses, so this collaboration is the perfect platform on which to create a complete MQA ecosystem for the Chinese consumer market.”

The MQA market in China is already relatively developed. China was the fourth largest market for sales of MQA devices, even before the existence of a domestic MQA-enabled music service. The partnership with MQA should further increase sales of partner products. Xiami was originally founded as a startup in 2008 before the company was acquired by Alibaba in 2013.