Trump-approved Triller woos India’s TikTok fans by partnering with Reliance’s JioSaavn music app

A TikTok rival has scored a powerful partner in India just weeks after the Chinese app was banned in the country.

Triller, the US-based short video app, announced on Monday that it’s teaming up with JioSaavn. The Indian music streaming service is owned by Jio Platforms, which also owns the country’s biggest telecom provider with some 380 million subscribers – three times the population of Japan.

Under the partnership, users can create Triller videos directly on the JioSaavn app, according to the announcement. All they have to do is click “a prominent button” on the main screen.

Triller already has a bigger focus on music compared with some other TikTok competitors. When you make a Triller video, the first thing you’re asked to do is to pick the music. The app became the most downloaded free iOS app in the US on August 1. Even President Donald Trump’s campaign joined the app, although installs have since declined from their peak.

While climbing the download charts, Triller still lags behind the competition in India. Among video players and editors on the Google Play app store, Triller still ranked 18 spots behind Snack Video, a competing app from China’s Tencent-backed Kuaishou, on Monday, according to data from App Annie.

JioSaavn, on the other hand, ranks better among music apps, coming ahead of big names like Spotify, YouTube Music and Resso, from TikTok owner ByteDance. Unlike its sibling app, Resso remains accessible in India for now.

The collaboration with JioSaavn gives Triller a prominent ally in India, a country considered the next big market after China. Jio is owned by Reliance, whose chairman Mukesh Ambani is India’s richest man. He is also apparently on good terms with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Jio has attracted a slew of high-profile investments this year, including from Facebook and Google. The latter said it’s planning to work with Jio on an affordable smartphone running a custom version of the Android operating system and Google Play.

Since being targeted by the Indian government, dozens of Chinese apps have been removed from app stores in the country. In addition to TikTok, the ban covers WeChat, Weibo, Baidu’s search app and Xiaomi’s browser, among many others.

But the ban has especially taken a toll on TikTok. The app had more downloads in India than anywhere else in the world, driving 30 per cent of TikTok’s installs since its launch, research firm Sensor Tower said in April.