Last week, British musician Jessie J was announced as the winner of Chinese TV competition "Singer" 2018. The show is a music variety show based in Hunan Province, central China, that bears some similarities to the globally famous X Factor.

The singer, already famous in the West for songs such as 'Price Tag', is the first Western winner of the show, which runs every year. She faced tough competition from other talented acts across China and indeed the rest of Asia. She covered versions of Whitney Houson and Celine Dion, which won the crowd over.

Many western singers like Jessie J are making the smart move to try to break into the Chinese music industry. China is one of the fastest growing music markets, seeing a rise to over 650 million online users, primarily using Wechat, QQ Music and KuGou. A huge rise in the use of smart phones has seen a move away from piracy in China. According to stats published by the IFPI, digital music revenues quadrupled over a five year period between 2012 and 2017. This saw a revenue of $195m from digital music alone across the country by the end of 2017.

Jessie J, when receiving first place, said she didn't enter the show to win, but was pleased to have been able to share some of her favourite songs with the audience, some of which had never been sung on Chinese TV before.