Byte Dance, the parent company of China’s short video-sharing application “Tik Tok,” is seeking to make inroads into the music streaming industry.
The Financial Times reported on Tuesday, citing sources, that Byte dance is preparing to launch a paid music streaming service.
ByteDance is reportedly negotiating licenses with global music companies Universal Music, Sony Music, and Warner Music. Before the U.S., it is aiming to launch streaming services in emerging markets such as India, Indonesia, and Brazil as early as next month.
ByteDance plans to differentiate itself from rivals in music streaming services. It will be focusing on “user-generated content” that has made Tik Tok a worldwide platform.
ByteDance music streaming: learning from Tik Tok, it might have the potential as well as the risk
Tik Tok is a service where users can create and share 15 seconds of a short video. Users can synthesize their songs or dances with background music. And because of its advantages, it is popular not only in China but also in overseas countries in the 10s and 20s.
Tik Tok, which started in China in 2016, saw the number of daily active users in China exceed 250 million three years after its launch. The company claimed that the number of users worldwide currently exceeds 1 billion. It is more than Snapchat or Twitter. Japan’s Softbank estimated the corporate value of ByteDance was at $75 billion last year.
However, some point out that Tiktok is facing a crisis as it has recently been placed under investigation by U.S. regulators. Tik Tok acquired U.S. lip-syncing app “Musically” for $1 billion in 2017. After that, U.S. regulators say that ByteDance is suspected of sharing data from U.S. users with the Chinese government. The suspicion raises speculation that a “second Huawei” could occur if Tik Tok is subject to strong U.S. sanctions.
Other countries around the world have also banned Tik Tok from their countries.
