May 13 (Reuters) - China's Tencent Music Entertainment

Group ( TME ) beat first-quarter revenue estimates on

Monday, helped by steady growth in paid subscriptions and

advertising services on its Spotify ( SPOT )-like music streaming

platform.

U.S. listed shares of Tencent Music Entertainment ( TME ) rose 1.8%

in premarket trade.

The audio entertainment platform reported revenue of 6.77

billion yuan ($935.9 million) for the quarter ended March 31,

beating analysts' expectations of 6.63 billion yuan, according

to LSEG data.

Revenue, however, declined 3.4% from a year earlier.

The company has bolstered its growth by capitalizing on its

position as the largest Chinese music-streaming platform with an

attractive licensed music library while continuing to focus on

advertising services and artist merchandise.

Paying users at its online music streaming service - a key

metric for the company - rose 20.2% to 113.5 million from a year

earlier.

The audio entertainment platform, which operates music apps

such as QQ music, Kugou music, Kuwo music and WeSing, reported a

39.2% jump in revenue from its music subscriptions to 3.62

billion yuan.

The company's revenue from online music services rose

43%, driven by solid growth in music subscription revenue.

However, revenue from its social entertainment services

dropped 49.7% due to the continued impact of the government's

crackdown on online gambling in 2023 and increased

competition from rival NetEase's Cloud Music and

Bytedance-owned short video sharing platform Douyin.

($1 = 7.2338 Chinese yuan renminbi)