INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Take a subway ride in China and expect to see a lot of commuters& eyes glued to TikTok videos on their phones.
Video clips like TikTok are
now consuming nearly nine percent of Chinese people time online, a 5.2 percent jump from 2017, according to app analytics firm
QuestMobile.
Apps such as TikTok — which is operated by ByteDance, the world highest valued startup at $75 billion — have become
popular among previously camera-shy users
Those who lack editing experience can now easily add beautifying filters and music to spice up their work.
Elderly couple having a moment
on Douyin / Credit: Douyin ID @淘气陈奶奶
It also helps that smartphone data became cheaper and internet
penetration kept growing in recent years — China now has 800 million smartphoneusers, according to government data
In 2013, just under 40 percent of China online population streamed videos on their phones, according to database CBNData
In 2017, that ratio surged to 80 percent.
Initially geared towards Chinese youth, short-video apps have increased in popularity across all
age groups & including the elderly
Over a third of the country 1.4 billion people are active on these apps every month
People above the age of 50 now spend as much as 50 minutes on them every day, compared to only 17 minutes a year ago.
And TikTok, called
Douyin in China, is spearheading the short-video game.
Tencent nerves
In recent years, few mobile apps in China have captured as many stares
as WeChat, Tencent messaging app that evolved into a one-stop platform allowing people to shop, order cabs, book hotels, and complete other
daily tasks.
Then short video apps came along, eating people eyeball time away
Apps like TikTok do not compete directly with WeChat as they serve different purposes, but data suggests that use of instant messaging
services has waned amid the fledgling video scene.
This year WeChat and its peers occupied 30.5 percent of people online time, a 3.6 percent
drop year-over-year per the QuestMobile report.
It comes as no surprise that Tencent is fretting over the clip craze and in particular,
In May, Tencent usually low-profile boss Pony Ma got in a rare online spat with ByteDance founder and CEO Zhang Yiming over plagiarism and
WeChat blocking TikTok content.
Typical miming and finger dancing performed by teens / Credit: Douyin ID
@李雨霏2007
Elsewhere, Tencent took action
Since April, the tech giant has rolled out a number of TikTok rivals but so far none has gotten close to the latter lion share: 500 million
monthly active users worldwide
That excluding the 100 million total users on Musical.ly, which ByteDance acquired in late 2017 and merged into TikTok this August.
Tencent
got other backup plans, though
It owns shares in TikTok China archrival Kuaishou, which had a 22.7 percent penetration rate in September according to data service provider
That however, dwarfed by TikTok 33.8 percent, which means the app was installed on over a third of all mobile devices monitored by Jiguang
Plus, ByteDance other short-video apps for different niches, Huoshan and Xigua, are also faring well, commanding 13.1 percent and 12.6
percent, respectively.
Alibaba: not quite an ally
Until recently, ByteDance appeared to be making nice with China other internet giant —
The companies kicked off a partnership in March that saw TikTok using Alibaba online marketplace Taobao to process ecommerce transactions on
Authorized TikTok users, usually those with a big following, can link videos to their Taobao shops
This money-making setup allows TikTok to lure more quality content creators
Alibaba, on the other hand, gets traffic from the fledgling social media app that could absorb some of the loss from WeChat blocking its
ecommerce apps.
Things can go south anytime, however, as ByteDance makes forays into Alibaba territories
The startup recently introduced an ecommerce platform and entered the business of long-form video streaming, an area where Alibaba, Tencent,
and Baidu iQIYI dominate.
Life hacks are popular, too: guy sharing his gardening tips / Credit: Douyin ID
@速效三元化合肥
ByteDance seems set to grow independently
Unlike many of China promising startups, six-year-old ByteDance hasn&t accepted financing from any of the tech trio of Baidu, Alibaba, and
Tencent — known as the BAT such is their dominance in China consumer technology.
ByteDance moves into new space may also signal the firm
urge to explore additional monetization channels besides advertising on feeds
It lifted its revenue target to $7.2 billion for 2018, well above the $2.5 billion it earned last year, according to Bloomberg.
At home and
afar
Despite the boom, China short-video market faces increasing regulatory headwinds
In recent months, authorities have been clamping down on Kuaishou, ByteDance video apps, and smaller players on account of eradicating
content that deemed illegal or inappropriate.
Violation could result in app store bans and those that underwent such severe punishment like
Miaopai, which is backed by China Twitter equivalent Weibo, suffered from a tumble in app installs.
Sometimes Douyin does get serious & a
Beijing TV channel has its own account and it covers news here / Credit: Douyin ID @BTV新闻
ByteDance didn&t get a ban & yet,
but it came under fire for its AI-driven recommendation algorithms
It something the startup prides itself on but has irritated media watchdogs who reprimanded TikTok for showing users &unacceptable& content,
such as videos depicting adolescent pregnancies
ByteDance popular news aggregator Jinri Toutiao, or &today headlines,& received similar criticisms for giving its 120 million daily users
&fluff&.
In response, ByteDance added thousands of censors to screen content on top of AI-driven recommendation across its apps.
ByteDance
expanding territory through TikTok goes well beyond China
This year, the short-video platform has been climbing app store rankings around the world, an ascend accelerated by its incorporation of
Now it not just Tencent that taking note; Facebook is also building a TikTok clone, TechCrunch reported recently.
