China’s popular coffee chain Luckin Coffee and streaming platform giant Netease Cloud Music officially opened a new music themed coffee shop called Yudao today, as reported by 36Kr.
The Youdao coffee shop will use songs and playlists provided by the Netease app, and will implement its “cloud music” streaming functions. The Chinese music streaming app also participated in the design of the store.
It’s the first time for such cross-over cooperation between these two companies.
The new concept coffee shop opened at Sinan Mansion, an old touristic spot nowadays popular mainly for its dozens of bars and cafes, located in Shanghai’s downtown area Xintiandi.
Netease Cloud Music selected members will be entitled to a free drink every afternoon at the new store, a move intended to encourage more Netease customers to pay for the platform cloud music services.
The recent step by Netease Music is not its first attempt to penetrate the offline scene. Previously, the Chinese music streaming giant brought a “sleep music” experience in cooperation with Atour hotels, among other collaboration projects.
According to research firm Trustdata, Netease main users are white-collar workers and students from the post-90s-generation.
Luckin Coffee is also known to target young consumers with a fast pace of life. This cooperation between the two can be seen as a way to share each other’s audiences.
The move comes just a few days after the Netease music streaming app has seen a comeback to the Chinese app stores. The platform was lifted for almost a month due to modifications to the music industry imposed by the Cyberspace Administration of China.
36Kr is the parent company of KrASIA.
