Damai grows faster than Live Nation,music business has advantages

Since the beginning of 2023, Damai, a leading online ticketing platform for live events in China, has witnessed remarkable growth in gross merchandise volume (GMV) and daily active users (DAU). A large amount of event sponsors, artists and concerts have gone online on Damai, making it the most preferred ticketing platform for online users.

Statistics show that from January to September this year, Damai’s box office volume and ticket buyers grew drastically, increasing by 158% and 116% respectively compared to the same period of 2019.

In terms of user scale, by the end of September, Damai’s DAU and MAU increased by 788% and 374% respectively compared to the same period of 2019, both reaching a record high. According to data released by QuestMobile, Damai saw a notable growth in user scale this year, with a maximum DAU of 20 million and a maximum MAU of 40 million.

In terms of performance number, the platform sold tickets for 59,000 performances in the first quarter of this year, three times of that in the same period of 2019. In the first nine months of 2023, Damai sold tickets for 210,000 performances, hitting a record high.

Meanwhile, Live Nation, a world-leading live entertainment giant, has returned to the track of positive growth in the last two years. Its financial statement for the second quarter indicated that Live Nation is expected to sell 600 million tickets this year, including 300 million fee-bearing tickets.

In terms of performance number in North America, Live Nation organized 14,400 music events in the first half of 2023, attracting 26.131 million fans in total, with all core indicators higher than the same period of the previous year.

This year, Live Nation achieved robust growth in global emerging markets represented by Asia-Pacific and Latin America. According to its financial statement, the company saw a 46% growth in international audience. The Town music festival that it held in Brazil sold more than 400,000 tickets, a stunning number.

As per the announcement of Alibaba Pictures on the acquisition of Damai, in terms of growth rate, Damai’s total GMV from April to June 2023 already exceeded 4 billion yuan, 1 billion yuan more than the total GMV of the four quarters of the previous fiscal year, which stayed at 3 billion. Besides, it doubled the figure of the previous quarter, surpassing the quarter-on-quarter growth rate of Live Nation in the second quarter of Live Nation. If comparing Damai and Live Nation’s market performances before and after the end of the COVID-19 pandemic, Live Nation realized a quarter-on-quarter increase of 43.8% in the second quarter of 2022, while Damai achieved a quarter-on-quarter growth of 160%. Even in the second quarter of 2019, Damai’s GMV still maintained a 25% growth, much higher than that of Live Nation’s total GTV, which saw a decline back then.

As the ticketing platform with the most users in China, Damai has realized incredible sales volume and quarter-on-quarter growth. This indicates that it has maintained a stable, advantageous position in the market in terms of core products such as concerts and music festivals. Moreover, this also reflects the tremendous vitality and growth potential of China’s performance market.

Data released by Dengta Professional, a box office statistics app, shows that 7,228 concerts and music festivals were held from January to August this year, with box office revenues totaling 5.528 billion yuan. Based on predictions by brokerages, Dengta Data, and third-party consulting companies, the think tank Small Antlers estimated that Damai’s share in China’s concert and music festival ticketing market is no less than 60%, steadily ranking among the top.

In future, after Damai is completely merged into Alibaba Pictures, its superiority in the field of live performances will be further released. On the one hand, cooperation with upstream and downstream partners of the industry chain will create new opportunities, enabling Damai to realize diversified development on all fronts; on the other hand, Damai is expected to embark on an internationalized path in terms of performance ticketing and content operation, so as to evolve into a comprehensive live entertainment service company on a par with Live Nation.