On May 10, Financial界 reported: In the end, it couldn't hold on any longer, and Himalaya, which has 300 million monthly active users, sold itself to Tencent!
On the evening of the 10th, Tencent Music announced on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange that it had signed a merger agreement with Himalaya Holdings regarding its proposed acquisition of Himalaya. The price for Tencent Music's acquisition of Himalaya is specifically $1.26 billion in cash and 5.5686% of Class A ordinary shares. Based on this calculation, Tencent's valuation of Himalaya is approximately 20.9 billion yuan.
However, this figure is far from the peak of Himalaya. The last round of financing took place in April 2021, when the post-investment valuation exceeded 30 billion yuan. Now, four years later, the valuation has shrunk by one-third. In 2021, Himalaya's founder Yu Jianjun rejected Tencent Music's higher offer, and if the transaction is completed, it will be considered a 'discounted price' takeover.
It is worth noting that the news of Tencent Music acquiring Himalaya was already reported in April this year.
On April 24, it was reported that Himalaya would be acquired by Tencent Music Group. According to reports from Phoenix Technology, Himalaya recently negotiated with Tencent Music Group regarding the acquisition. At that time, Himalaya responded that it was still unaware of the matter of 'sale'. Now, a month and a half later, the rumors have turned into reality.
Regarding the sale to Tencent, Himalaya stated that it will maintain the existing brand, the independent operation of existing products, the core management team, and the company's strategic development direction unchanged. We promise that all types of contracts signed with partners and Himalaya will be fulfilled as promised, and the rights of every customer will also be protected by law.
Himalaya co-founders Chen Xiaoyu and Yu Jianjun expressed that rather than struggling alone, it is better to share resources and collaborate on research and development, focusing energy on truly enhancing user experience and creator earnings. 'Together, we can go further and more steadily.'
However, Tencent Music clearly stated in the announcement that, according to the merger agreement, Himalaya will undergo restructuring of several existing businesses related to the transaction.
Has attempted to go public four times without success.
It is worth noting that Himalaya has attempted to go public four times without success.
Since its establishment, Himalaya has gone through 12 rounds of financing, with a luxurious array of backers, raising nearly 10 billion yuan in total. According to the prospectus, before the IPO, Xingwang Investment held 10.72% of Himalaya's shares, making it the largest external investor, followed by Zhixin Capital with 9.94%. A subsidiary of Tencent intended to invest with a shareholding of 5.33%, while Xiaomi and the institutions under Yuewen held 3.38% and 3.05% of Himalaya, respectively. Strategic investors such as TAL Education Group, Sony Music, and financial investors like the U.S. General Atlantic Investment Group, Zhixin Capital, and Goldman Sachs are also among the investors. The last round of financing was in April 2021, when Himalaya's post-investment valuation exceeded 30 billion yuan.
On April 13, 2024, Himalaya submitted its prospectus for the fourth time. Previously, Himalaya had attempted to go public three times, first seeking a listing in the U.S. stock market in May 2021, only to withdraw four months later. Then, in 2021 and 2022, it submitted IPO applications and updated prospectuses to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.
However, Himalaya's IPO still has not yielded results.
More than 1,700 people were laid off.
After multiple unsuccessful attempts to go public, Himalaya conducted an unprecedented layoff of its employees. Public documents show that at the end of 2021, Himalaya had 4,342 full-time employees, but by the end of 2023, only 2,637 remained, with more than 1,700 people laid off. Several insiders have reported that Himalaya underwent a large-scale layoff at the end of 2023 and had two or three waves of personnel changes in 2024, with the latest organizational changes occurring in early 2025.
Public information shows that from 2018 to 2021, Himalaya lost a total of 9.9 billion yuan, and only achieved an adjusted profit of 223.7 million yuan in 2023.
The 2024 prospectus shows that since 2021, Himalaya's monthly active user count has maintained steady growth, reaching 303 million in 2023, but the growth rate in 2023 was only 4.1%, a significant slowdown compared to 7.2% in 2021 and 8.6% in 2022. The number of monthly active paying users remained at 15.8 million, basically unchanged from the previous year. However, the payment rate of monthly active paying users and monthly active paying members on mobile has both declined by 1% in 2023. The average listening duration of daily active users also decreased from 144 minutes in 2021 to 130 minutes in 2023.
The prospectus shows that Himalaya has over 300 million daily active users, but only 15.8 million paying users, resulting in a platform-wide payment rate of only 5.3%. In comparison, the payment rate for the long video platform iQIYI is 20.6%, for the online music platform Tencent Music it is 15.9%, and for NetEase Cloud Music, it reaches 20%.
