TuneCore Marks Southeast Asia Expansion, Led by Cyrus Chen

The leading digital music distribution service provider for independent artists worldwide continues its global expansion, making its debut in Southeast Asia

MANILA, PHILIPPINES – Media OutReach – 20 April 2021 – TuneCore, a global leader in digital music distribution for independent artists worldwide has officially launched operations across Southeast Asia (SEA). TuneCore is owned by Believe, one of the world’s leading digital music companies based in Paris. Believe currently operates in 50+ countries and together, the two companies distribute a significant share of the world’s digital music. Earlier this year, TuneCore launched operations in LATAM and Africa, bringing its total presence to 14 countries in 4 continents, and thereby making the company the independent DIY distributor with the largest global footprint.

TuneCore distributes
music to a network of more than 150 digital stores and streaming services
worldwide, including Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Music, JOOX, KKBox, Amazon
Music, TikTok, QQ Music and Netease. The company boasts 14 localized and fully
translated websites, including Southeast Asian languages Thai and Bahasa (Indonesia).
The Vietnamese and Mandarin (simplified and traditional) versions of the website
are expected to be added later this year, bringing the total to 16 languages
for 2021, by far the most of its competitors.

 

TuneCore’s operations
in Southeast Asia will be spearheaded by Cyrus Chen, who joined the company in
late 2020. Prior to joining TuneCore, Cyrus worked with organizations such as
Changi Travel Services and eatigo International, where he was responsible in
conceptualising and orchestrating strategic plans that reinforced brand image
and helped companies develop integrated business strategies to scale across
regions.

 

Said Faryal
Khan-Thompson, Vice President, International, TuneCore to whom Cyrus will
report, “In the Southeast Asia market, the music industry is growing at a
steady pace, with the number of potential music listeners in Asia exceeding 3.5
billion^[1].
With Cyrus at the helm, TuneCore is uniquely positioned to help independent
artists in Southeast Asia grow their fan base through the company’s game
changing education, best in class tools and wide ranging global reach, all
while allowing artists to keep all rights to their music and earn 100% of 100%
of their revenues,”

Cyrus Chen, Head of TuneCore, SEA

 

Commenting on
TuneCore’s expansion, Cyrus said, “I am honored to join TuneCore and work with
Faryal and the larger team to introduce the company’s services to Southeast
Asia. We are an emerging music market with vast potential and a diverse
population of varying cultures and languages. TuneCore’s parent company Believe
entered the market in 2013 and has since developed a deep understanding of each
country’s local music scene. TuneCore is leveraging that deep local industry knowledge
to build our offerings, catered to the specific needs of independent DIY
artists in the region, with scalable services at a competitve price, while
supplying high value.”

 

Sylvain Delange,
Managing Director Asia Pacific, Believe expressed, “TuneCore’s deep commitment
to champion independent artists from all four corners of the world is in line
with our vision [at Believe] to propel artists’ growth. There is an opportunity
for TuneCore & Believe to further contribute to the growth of the thriving
Southeast Asia independent artists community and help them take advantage of
the exponential growth to come in the digital space while still allowing
musicians to continue to maintain control and ownership of their work.
Together, we are excited and are confident we’ll provide the most comprehensive
set of services and products to artists in the Southeast Asian market.”

 

The region is ripe for partnerships and activations,
as demonstrated by Cyrus’ already robust slew of country-specific initiatives.
Highlights are below:

 

Philippines: Celebrating
local relevancy with PhilPop

In the Philippines,
TuneCore has partnered with PhilPop Musicfest Foundation, Inc., a non-profit
foundation that organizes music and songwriting programs to grow Filipino Pop
Music. TuneCore will be a sponsor of the 2021 Songwriting DigiCamp, an
activation targeted towards aspiring songwriters across the Philippines. The
DigiCamp is one of PhilPop’s key 2021 programs, and leads into the PhilPop 2022
Songwriting Festival, a year-long celebration of original Filipino music
compositions.

 

For more information
about TuneCore, please visit their website at https://www.tunecore.com/. For additional press materials, please check
out this Google
Drive link.