Surprise surprise, TikTok is getting into the music streaming business!
Earlier this month, ByteDance soft launched TikTok Music in Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico, Australia, and Singapore.
TikTok Music seems to be Spotify and more! Users can stream music, comment on songs, listen to viral music from TikTok directly, and even download songs. Like Spotify Premium and Apple Music.
And all of that starts at $8.99/mo. with a 3-month trial, which is lower than Apple Music and Spotify.
But! TikTok Music isn't a new concept. In fact, ByteDance, TikTok's parent company, has been operating a similar music app by the name of Resso Music in India and Indonesia since 2019. Resso Music has been downloaded more than 200M times since release, according to our estimates.
TikTok Music, which launched on July 6th, has already been downloaded 950K times, according to our estimates.
Brazil is TikTok Music's biggest source of downloads, with 552K so far. Resso is available in Brazil but is about to get replaced by TikTok Music soon as Resso is going away.
TikTok Music could grow more globally than Resso. In addition to giving ByteDance access to a much larger paying audience can also bring ByteDance back to India, where the flagship TikTok app is banned. TikTok Music isn't available in India at the moment but Resso is and that's what makes me think TikTok Music will as well.
Once TikTok Music gets to the US it is sure to challenge Spotify, Apple Music, and others. All have recently raised prices, and Spotify's battle with Apple over fees is making it harder to become a paying subscriber on the iPhone, a weakness TikTok can avoid.
I wonder if Apple will start treating TikTok differently now.
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