In May, a Bloomberg report said that ByteDance, the parent company of the popular app TikTok, is developing a music streaming service to counter Apple Music and Spotify. Citing sources, The Financial Times is now claiming that the Chinese company may launch the platform in question as early as in December in select countries like India, Indonesia and Brazil. It also reports that the service is cost less than the $10 per month that its competitors typically charge for their all-you-can-stream offerings.
‘The app would reportedly include a collection of short, searchable video clips you could sync to songs and share with your friends,’ The Financial Times said in its report. It is said to launch in the US sometime later, and for that ByteDance is reportedly in talks with Sony, Universal and Warner to license their music catalogs. The company has apparently secured rights from India’s top music labels T-Series and Times Music. The app is said to include a catalog of songs available on-demand, as well as video.
The news follows a report which claimed that TikTok has hit 1.5 billion download mark globally. According to SensorTower, India tops the chart with 466.8 million, or about 31 per cent of all unique installs. It is the combined number of installs on the App Store and Google Play. In 2019, TikTok accumulated 614 million downloads, which is six per cent more than it had last. India has been a fast adaptor in 2019. To put its perspective, Indians downloaded the app for 277.6 million times, which is roughly 45 per cent of all global installs during the same period.
China was placed on the second spot with 45.5 million downloads (7.4 percent), while the US captured the third spot with 37.6 million installs (or about 6 per cent) in 2019. TikTok is the third-most downloaded non-gaming app of the year, behind WhatsApp at the top with 707.4 million installs and Facebook Messenger at second spot with 636.2 million. Facebook is fourth with 587 million downloads and Instagram at fifth spot with 376.2 million.
