Short-video app leader ByteDance tries again to break WeChat’s hold on social networking in China
- ByteDance has clashed previously with Tencent over accusations that the latter was blocking the former.
ByteDance Technologies may have carved out a swathe of China’s online traffic with its popular short-video and news aggregation apps, but the Beijing-based company has yet to break Tencent Holdings’ grip on social networking. It’s not for want of trying.
In at least the third attempt in the past year, ByteDance will try to crack the market for social networking among China’s 829 million internet users, with a group chat within its popular Douyin short-video app. Friends who follow each other’s accounts can start a chat group to share text, photos, audio and videos on the app. The in-app functions allow users to share Douyin videos instantly into a group chat instead of downloading them and going outside the app to share it on other platforms.
“Douyin private messaging has been equipped with relevant basic function after it upgraded to Duoshan,” according to a company spokeswoman. Duoshan, which translates to “many flashes”, is Bytedance’s stand-alone social messaging app launched in January 2019. The app, which requires a Douyin account and mainland phone number to log in, focus ones video messaging with close friends.
The latest offering from ByteDance steps up advances made by China’s major internet companies to build ecosystems and various platforms that can host multiple services, delivering greater convenience to consumers in the world’s largest smartphone market. Douyin, for example, has already integrated external online shopping links from Alibaba Group Holding’s Taobao Marketplace and Tmall platforms.
It is also another attempt by ByteDance to break the grip of Tencent’s WeChat on China’s social networking. Currently, Douyin video links cannot be opened in WeChat, depriving the former of a big source of potential referral traffic as the latter has 1.1 billion daily active users.