ByteDance Could Become the Spotify for Gen Z
The maker of popular TikTok app has reason to get further into the music world with a free music streaming product.
It’s no secret ByteDance has a somewhat adversarial approach to Tencent, and it could take on Tencent Music and win with its incredible traction in apps for young people.
I expect this launch is imminent as we’ve been hearing rumours about this since the Spring of 2019. This month TikTok owner Beijing ByteDance Technology Co Ltd is in talks with big music labels – Universal Music, Sony Music and Warner Music – for global licensing deals to include their songs on its new music subscription service.
ByteDance Will Launch a Mobile Music Streaming Service to Complement TikTok
TikTok is all about the music vibes, the playfulness and the viral memes in dance, song and that silly quality. A Gen Z consumer tech company is very rare, and ByteDance has shown an uncanny ability to innovate app products that appeal to the under 25 crowd.
ByteDance claims over 1 billion monthly active users and will have deeper pockets due to Softbank Vision Fund round two and an eventual IPO. TikTok users spent a record $10.8 million within the app in June, with US users accounting for more than 20% of in-app purchases, according to data analytics firm Sensor Tower.
ByteDance is likely also to become a major advertising player eventually as it experiments diversifying its business model across a range of products.
The first concept is a music-streaming service that is like an add-on to TikTok’s already incredible user experience. The as-of-yet-unnamed music app will include a library of short video clips for listeners to search through and sync to songs as they listen, the report by the FT said.
ByteDance is looking to launch its music streaming as soon as next month, initially in emerging markets such as India, Indonesia and Brazil, before a future opening in the United States.
Who knows, it could be one of the hot apps of 2020 in that case. TikTok has gone viral in India in 2019 and is showing the company could become a serious competitor to Facebook eventually as Instagram’s demographics are aging and app engagement levels are down.
ByteDance is the GenZ Company to Dethrone Facebook & Tencent
Let’s just admit it, Instagram belongs to the old era where personal sharing was somehow relevant. ByteDance has apps that curates, entertains and informs with AI personalization that makes Facebook look like a bit of a legacy player.
In China, where ByteDance claims to have tie-ups with more than 800 labels, it has been aggressively expanding efforts to find music talents and urge them to make their own tracks, says TechCrunch.
Given the momentum this company has, there’s no reason to suppose the product could not eventually mature to take on Tencent Music and Spotify. This is because ByteDance is on a trajectory to become a super platform with a wide range of popular apps that will eventually supplant Tencent.
ByteDance of all startups in the world is tethered to GenZ in much the way Snapchat is, just at a much bigger scale. These types of companies who are also leaders in AI will have significant advertising revenue one day, and be able to evolve products like a brain-computer-interface (BCI) that I have alluded to in the past.
What is the unique value proposition that is the single most contributing factor to TikTok’s success? It’s all about the music.