Zhoumi will run STE, the Beijing label venture from SM and Tencent Music

Zhoumi, who has spent nearly 20 years in Super Junior's China-based unit Super Junior-M, has been appointed chief executive of STE, the Beijing joint venture SM Entertainment and Tencent Music announced on August 27.

The two parents bring very different assets. SM is home to aespa, NCT, Super Junior, EXO, Girls' Generation, Red Velvet and Riize. Tencent Music is China's largest operator of streaming services, running QQ Music, Kugou Music, Kuwo Music and the karaoke platform WeSing.

STE's job is to develop and manage artists for the Greater China market. It will run auditions to cast a new Chinese idol group, which SM says is being prepared for a debut within two to three years, and will handle that group's management inside China once it arrives.

It also takes over Greater China management for three existing SM artists, NCT DREAM's Renjun and WayV's Yangyang and Xiaojun, exclusively, with SM promising what it calls more sophisticated localised promotions for them.

SM says Zhoumi pairs an understanding of the K-pop production system with management experience built as a director at the company's Chinese subsidiary. "I will perfectly combine SM's unrivaled strengths in IP and content production with the unique characteristics of the Greater China market," he said.

The venture follows a memorandum of understanding the two companies signed in May 2025, the same month Tencent Music became SM's second-largest shareholder by buying HYBE's entire 9.38% stake for KRW 243.35 billion. Kakao and Kakao Entertainment together hold 40.28% and remain the largest shareholder.

It also fits a run of Tencent Music investments in Korean music companies: a February joint venture with JYP CHINA and CJ ENM called ONECEAD, and a co-led $80 million Series B in The Black Label in May. SM's own China work sits inside the localised IP strategy co-chief executive Dmitry YJ Tak set out in January, which also covers Thailand and talks in Japan.

The market context is the reason any of this is complicated. K-pop acts have reportedly been unofficially barred from performing in China since around 2016 and 2017, after South Korea deployed a US missile defence system, so a locally cast group managed by a Chinese-Korean venture is a way around a door that has stayed shut. China overtook Germany to become the world's fourth-largest recorded music market in 2025, growing 20.1% year on year according to the IFPI, while SM's own quarterly revenue rose 15.4% and Tencent Music reported $1.32 billion for the same quarter. It is a large pop bet on a market that has not been open for a decade.