Company behind viral video app TikTok is now planning to launch its own smartphone

Owners of the social media platform TikTok have confirmed their intention to enter the smart phone business. 

Chinese social media company ByteDance, which owns short-form video platform TikTok, the western version of Douyin, confirmed the move to financial news outlet Caijing, adding that the phone has already been in development for seven months.  

The phone is being developed in tandem with the company Smartisan Technology and will reportedly come pre-loaded with ByteDance’s many apps. 

Among them could be Tik Tok, ByteDance’s news aggregation app Toutiao, and an unreleased music-streaming service which will look to compete with the likes of Spotify and Apple Music. 

The parent company of viral video app TikTok confirmed their plans to release its own smartphone. File photo

ByteDance in January also launched Duoshan, a video chatting app that closely mirrors Snapchat. 

‘The product was a continuation of earlier Smartisan plans, aiming to satisfy the needs of the old Smartisan user base,’ a Smartisan spokesperson told Reuters.   

According to an previous report by Bloomberg, the unnamed music-streaming service, which isn’t expected to be named after TikTok, will first launch in emerging markets like India.

ByteDance struck a deal with the Smartisan earlier this year for certain patents that would help the company ‘explore the world of education’ — a move that may also strategically position the company into a potential expansion toward phones.

New reports offer no details on when the phone could be unveiled or what it would look like.

TikTok, also known as Douyin in China, has become one of the fastest-growing apps among teen users over the past few years and now counts more than 500 million downloads. 

The app has also had real impacts on cultural trends. For example, ‘Old Town Road,’ currently the number one song in the world, picked up steam on TikTok.

With its streaming service, ByteDance will try to capitalize on TikTok’s rapid popularity by converting some of its users into paying customers, according to an earlier report from Bloomberg earlier this month.  

TikTok has also had real impacts on cultural trends in the years since its launch. For example, ‘Old Town Road,’ currently the number one song in the world, picked up steam on TikTok

Offering the app as a paid service is likely to be more appealing to labels, as they’ll get a higher rate of royalties compared to free services.  

TikTok has amassed a sizable user base in India, where it now counts 300 million monthly users.  

However, it has yet to secure rights from major labels like Universal, Warner and Sony. 

Doing so will be vital for ByteDance’s music streaming service to expand to North America, Europe or Latin America, Bloomberg noted.  

WHAT IS TIKTOK? 

TikTok is known in China as Douyin where it was launched in 2016

Tik Tok is a Chinese social media app where users can live stream, create short videos and music videos and Gifs with a host of functions. 

Tik Tok’s tagline is ‘Make every second count’.

It was the most downloaded app in the US in 2018 and the world’s fourth most downloaded app in 2018, ahead of Instagram and Snapchat.

TikTok is known in China as Douyin where it was launched in 2016 and then made more widely available around the world in 2017.  

Douyin is still the version of the app used in China, available to download separately to TikTok.

Last year, the app was merged with popular music video lip-syncing app Musical.ly, also with headquarters in China. 

Most children use the app to film themselves lip-syncing to chart hits. 

It offers users a raft if colourful modification and editing tools including overlaying music, sound, animated stickers, filters and augmented reality (AR) for creating short videos. 

The Beijing based social network has more than 500 million active users and the company is now worth more than $75 billion (£58 billion).