Even though there is much pressure on ByteDance’s TikTok in the west ad some countries around the world, the Chinese variant of the service or Douyin isn’t backing down as new report says the service recently hit the 600 million daily user mark as the parent company stated that it experienced a 50% jump since the beginning of the year.
The major difference between Douyin and TikTok is basically due to the latter being the international version while the former is used only by Chinese teenagers.
The service has also stated that more than 22 million of it’s creators have earned a total of US$6.15 billion (CNY 41.7 billion) over the past four years according to the company’s CEO Kelly Zhang during an online conference. The service is also poised to helping in doubling the amount creators make over the next year.
A number of US-based companies have been showing interests in purchasing the exported version (TikTok) among which are Microsoft, Oracle Corp with the latter announcing on Monday that it would team up with ByteDance which could help the service to continue its operations in the United States as the US President, Donald Trump had proposed to ban the service over national security grounds though the service is among those banned in India.
Just like TikTok, Douyin allows it’s users to watch short videos and livestreams as well as make in-app purchases and its one of the most popular social media applications in China and its growth is based on that of TikTok which had grown into a global phenomenon.
In comparison, China’s messaging app WeChat, which is owned by Tencent Holdings, said it had over 1 billion users using the app everyday in 2018. China had 1.6 billion monthly active mobile internet users as of May, according to market researcher QuestMobile.
With the recent political tension rising which is affecting further exportation of the business abroad, ByteDance is said to be considering listing its China business in either Hong Kong or Shanghai which are two of the world’s largest economies according to Reuters.
The bulk of ByteDance’s revenue is still generated in China, sources have told Reuters, mainly from ad income on Douyin and its Chinese news aggregator Jinri Toutiao.
