---- Einen chinesischen Netizen durchsucht die Website von Chinesisch Online Music Site Kugou.com in JiNan City, East China Provinz Shandong, 4. Juni 2013. Digi
--FILE--A Chinese netizen browses the website of Chinese online music site Kugou.com in JiNan city, east Chinas Shandong province, 4 June 2013. Digital music service Kugou is likely to become the next Chinese internet company to go public prematurely because of tough competition in the market, reports web portal Sina's technology blog. Several key players in China's digital music market have emerged following a round of consolidation earlier this year, the report said. They are QQ Music operated by Tencent; Xiami and TTPod backed by e-commerce giant Alibaba; NetEase Cloud Music and Kugou. Despite a merger with two other music services ª Kuwo and Haiyang ª Kugou does not have the backing of a major internet company that can offer funding and resources, according to the blog. Funding is a key factor in the competition among Chinese digital music services, which spend heavily on music copyright but have not been seeing profits, the report said. The lack of a rich backer led to speculation about Kugou's plan to launch an IPO by the end of the year, since a large part of the music copyright held by the company will expire by June 2016, according to a report on iFeng, the news website of Hong Kong's Phoenix New Media.
