The global music narrative underwent a dramatic format shift in 2013. According to data from the IFPI, revenue from digital downloads dipped by 2.1% to $3.93 billion, while subscription streaming income exploded by a staggering 51%, crossing the billion-dollar threshold at $1.11 billion. Combined, ad-funded and subscription streaming claimed 27% of all recorded music revenue worldwide.
But the real story of 2013 wasn’t just about how people listened; it was about where they listened. For years, Western music bodies had written off China as a market completely lost to piracy. Digital distribution, however, was quietly proving it could build a legitimate, thriving ecosystem in the world’s most populous nation. The launch of NetEase Cloud Music in April 2013 served as a loud, undeniable signal: Asia was ready to become a premier global music powerhouse.
Having already established strong footprints across mainland Europe, the UK, and Canada, Believe identified the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region as its next great frontier. It was time to execute a rapid, high-stakes expansion.
Slipstreaming Apple into Southeast Asia
To spearhead this ambitious campaign, Sylvain Delange joined Believe in early 2013 to orchestrate the company’s Asian expansion plans. Operating initially from France, Believe adopted a clever “slipstream” strategy, partnering closely with Apple as the tech giant rolled its iTunes Music Store out across new territories.
They already started operating in Japan, but they launched in Southeast Asia and were looking for someone to help gather Indonesian catalogue, so the very first country we went into was Indonesia.”
Sylvain Delange
President, APAC
Apple possessed the global retail architecture, but they lacked the localized relationship networks required to unlock regional music scenes. That was Believe’s exact cue.
“Apple almost never does any direct licensing with local record labels, because it requires specific knowledge and connections with the local music ecosystem”, Sylvain Delange explains. “So they always relied on third-party partners. That’s where we came into place. We organised the first few trips with Denis, our CEO, in Southeast Asia. The first trip we did was to Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore. Within six months in 2013, we started operating in Thailand, the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, and India.“
The strategic crossroads of Singapore
This lightning-fast rollout served as a masterclass in market entry. While Believe would eventually plant its regional headquarters in Singapore in 2020, the logistical and relational seeds of that hub were firmly planted during the 2013 blitz.
Singapore is very conveniently located at the crossroads in Asia, almost equal distance between Japan and India, and with easy access to Southeast Asia, China and beyond. t’s a very business-friendly environment. Plus all our natural counterparts have their headquarters there, YouTube, Spotify, Apple, TikTok. My DSP counterparts at a regional leadership level all sit in the same city. That’s the benefit of being located in Singapore, where we eventually opened our main office for the zone.”
Sylvain Delange
President, APAC
Believe’s grassroots strategy in emerging markets, centered on local artist development and gradual expansion of local teams, reflected a different emphasis from approaches that had traditionally focused more strongly on the international circulation of established repertoire. Believe saw these markets as vibrant, self-sustaining ecosystems.
“It’s not that the majors have not been active in those markets, but it was to a much lesser extent than they’d been in Western markets”, Sylvain Delange argues. “The reality is that the majors have always been operating in those markets as an extension of their international repertoire, really to push their international music there. Some of them had some local presence. I’m not saying that they never really developed local artists, but I wouldn’t say it was among their top priorities at the time.”
Digitising legend: the cultural salvage mission
Believe recognised that the beating heart of these musical landscapes belonged to the independent community. The talent was there, but it was structurally marooned.
“The majority of the music ecosystem and the local artists were developed by local labels”, notes Sylvain Delange. “That was true in China, Japan, Indonesia, Thailand and India.“
The immediate challenge for Believe wasn’t marketing; it was addressing a vast digitisation gap. Entire generations of recordings were sitting on analog tapes, completely invisible to the internet.
“A lot of the catalogues were not even available on digital platforms, and some of them were never even digitised in the first place”, Sylvain Delange says. “Our first step was to identify where those catalogues were, which ones had already been digitised and made available, and which ones had not. What were the most legendary or most established catalogues that we knew were likely going to find fans on platforms? And how quickly could we get there and help those labels digitise and make their music available?“
The lifesaver called YouTube
Because digital retail was so nascent across the region, local labels had incredibly modest expectations. Believe had to step in as an educator, painting a pict.ure of where consumption was heading while managing the realities of the ground.
Streaming was not yet a thing and downloads were niche at best.It was in its early stages. The work was essentially driven towards Apple. Very quickly it started to be driven to YouTube, which was really the first at-scale platform that really made a difference in the region in terms of access to music. And even there, music was not properly monetised by a lot of labels. The strategy was to really focus on those catalogues, that domestic content that had never been made available, or that was not properly monetised on platforms so that we could help them there.”
Sylvain Delange
President, APAC
While Western music executives spent 2012 and 2013 obsessing over the “value gap” and treating video platforms with litigious suspicion, Asian independent labels viewed the medium through a completely different financial lens.
The Asian labels didn’t have the luxury to complain about how low YouTube was paying, because at least they were getting paid, Sylvain Delange says point-blank. It was not the case before. YouTube was a true game-changer and, I would say, a lifesaver for the music industry for ten years. That’s what really helped to maintain a lot of labels and kept a lot of the music industry afloat. In a context where there was no other alternative, and there were no other ways of making money around music.
Educating the algorithms
By operating as an active distribution and artist development partner, rather than solely as a digital distributor, Believe managed to build a holistic, multi-platform view of the Asian music market.
“It gives you a very deep understanding of what type of content works, what types of artists and what genres of music are getting popular, what ones are progressing, what ones are regressing, and which era in the music ecosystem is actually getting traction”, Sylvain Delange argues. “You get to see it across platforms. It gives you a unique view and it helps to educate you much faster on the market than anybody else.”
To build this deep, localized knowledge base, Believe intentionally avoided cherry-picking specific commercial niches. They signed everything.
“We signed traditional content, old-school content, new up-and-coming content, regional content, urban content: pretty much everything which really helped us have a very deep understanding of each ecosystem.”
This massive repository of local data allowed Believe to actively educate the global streaming platforms themselves on how to cater to their own audiences.
“We were the ones who told Spotify that they should start building regional music playlists in Indonesia because they were missing a big chunk of the audience there”, Sylvain Delange explains. “The platform was not relevant enough for the audience if they were not showcasing this content.“
The Ultimate Domestic Flip
This long-term bet on regional authenticity completely rewired the global music map. Looking back from 2026, the early legwork of 2013 has yielded a staggering competitive advantage.
“I was looking at the IFPI charts in Southeast Asia this morning”, Sylvain Delange notes in April 2026. “Half of the artists in the Indonesia top 20 are Believe artists. Half of the artists in Thailand are Believe artists. It’s the same in many other countries. I’m talking about Believe artists that we have developed in-house with our own artist development capacity. We have really built a fully fledged artist development capacity.“
Ultimately, Believe’s legacy in the region is measured by a fundamental shift in economic and cultural equity, transforming local markets from passive consumers of international music into dominant, self-sustaining ecosystems.
“We gave access to a lot of labels and gave a lot of artists a stream of revenues that simply did not exist before, and we contributed to increasing the visibility of those artists on DSPs”, Sylvain Delange says. “When we entered Indonesia and Thailand, music consumption on platforms like Spotify was 30% domestic and 70% international. Today, it’s the opposite. In Thailand and Indonesia today, 60% of the music consumed on the platform is actually domestic. In a big part, this is thanks to Believe. We flipped the value creation from a world where the majority of the value gets captured by international players, and essentially flows back into the pockets of international artists, to a model where the majority of those revenues actually flow back into the pockets of domestic artists and domestic labels. To me, this is a very strong impact testimonial of how we’re really creating access.“
By aligning their business with the true value of local communities, Believe constructed a permanent launchpad for regional success.
“We have developed tools, capabilities, expertise, and teams that now are able to master true artist development in all of those markets”, Sylvain Delange says. “We have created new superstars. Some artists that essentially started as independent, self-produced artists, sometimes bedroom producers, have become some of the top artists in the market.“
As digital music expanded beyond its Western strongholds, Believe’s experience in Asia illustrated the growing importance of locally developed ecosystems in shaping the next phase of the global music industry.
———————
Article written by Eamonn Forde. Eamonn Forde is an award-winning music business journalist and author. He writes for The Guardian, Forbes; Music Week, and Music Business Worldwide and several other publications.
