TikTok maker ByteDance refocuses on education apps back home in China amid trouble overseas

The company behind TikTok is using its knowledge of the endless scroll to experiment with online learning apps

ByteDance looks for new growth in its home market after TikTok was banned in India and faces being forced out of the US

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Online education became one of the fastest growing sectors in China during the Covid-19 pandemic. Photo: Reuters

Published: 11:30am, 13 Aug 2020Updated: 11:30am, 13 Aug 2020

ByteDance is having a rough year abroad. Its star app TikTok is being targeted by authorities in India, the US and beyond. Facing headwinds overseas, the company is now looking to bolster its status back home with a focus on one particular area: online education.

ByteDance recently launched two new learning apps in China.

Xuelang offers one- to two-hour live-streamed classes for elementary to high school students. Professional knowledge courses are also available for adults in topics like sales.

Qingbei Xiaoban, on the other hand, focuses on small online classes. The teacher of each class is responsible for no more than 25 students. The goal is to offer more specialised attention to each student, according the app description on Apple’s iOS App Store.

Over the last couple years, ByteDance has built up an army of online education products. To set itself apart from the better established rivals, it has tried to draw on its experience building entertainment apps like TikTok. The secret sauce of these apps relies on an endless scroll of targeted content picked by AI algorithms.

One example is Tangyuan English, launched a year ago.

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