TikTok’s parent company is developing music streaming app for developing markets.
It has reportedly secured rights from T-Series and Times Music.
ByteDance, the Chinese owner of the popular app TikTok, is reportedly developing a music service for emerging markets, a media report said. Citing people familiar with the matter, Bloomberg reported that the company aims to challenge leading players like Spotify and Apple Music. The company has apparently secured rights from India’s top music labels T-Series and Times Music. This shows that company aims to expand its footprint in the country where it was banned, and then bounced back gaining more user base in a week.
“ByteDance expects to introduce the new app as early as this fall in a handful of territories, mostly poorer countries where paid music services have yet to garner large audiences,” Bloomberg cited its source as saying. The new app is apparently not named after TikTok, and ByteDance will reportedly try to convert some of TikTok’s audience into paying customers. As far as the music library is concerned, the app is said to include a catalog of songs available on-demand, as well as video.
It is also reported that if ByteDance is to expand the music streaming business to markets like Europe and the Americas, it will have to secure rights from the global leaders like Universal, Warner and Sony. This is due to the fact that their catalogs account for a minority of listening in most emerging markets, Bloomberg says. Reportedly, ByteDance’s contracts with these three major labels expired in the Spring. These labels provided audio clips which TikTokers used to make short videos on the platform.
A report by mobile data and analytics company App Annie, TikTok was the 90th most downloaded app on the Google Play Store in India and the 13th among the category of “social” apps on April 30. By the end of May 1, it had become the 15th most downloaded application in India, and the 4th most among social apps. What’s noteworthy is that the ban on the app in India was lifted on April 25 and it was available for download from May 1.
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