TikTok’s Chinese version gets WeChat-style friend-finding function in social networking push, challenging Tencent

ByteDance’s Douyin now lets users shake their phones to find users nearby, a feature that helped rival Tencent grow WeChat into China’s most-used super app
The Beijing-based company has been looking for ways to expand the domestic version of TikTok beyond short videos to become a social and lifestyle platform

TikTok

Coco Fengin Beijing

Published: 2:59pm, 27 Apr 2021

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Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok developed by Beijing-based ByteDance, launched a location-based social feature on Monday that allows users to find people nearby by shaking their phones, replicating a feature almost identical to one that has long existed in Tencent Holdings’ WeChat in a move widely seen as a challenge to the latter’s dominance in social networking.

The feature called dou yi dou, which roughly translates as “shake it”, allows users to shake their phones and see others doing the same nearby, then add each other to their friends lists. It works similarly to WeChat’s yao yi yao, which helped popularise the super app in its early days by making it easy to add new contacts.

WeChat now has about 1.2 billion active monthly users, and it is hard to find a smartphone in China without it installed. By comparison, Douyin had 600 million daily active users as of last August.

To encourage people to try the new feature, Douyin introduced a five-day campaign allowing users to win prizes such as KFC coupons after shaking their phones and befriending others.

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As the short-video app has grown in popularity in China, ByteDance has been looking for ways to expand the app into new areas. This is one strategy that paid off well for WeChat, which grew out from a simple messaging app into one that does seemingly everything from mobile payments to its own short-video feature launched last year called Channels.

Kelly Zhang, China CEO of ByteDance, said in January that Douyin is expected to evolve from an entertainment app to a social and lifestyle platform.

ByteDance’s ambition to build a social platform goes back to 2019, when it launched Duoshan and Feiliao, which enabled users to interact with each other based on short videos and interests, respectively. Neither has become a mainstream social app.

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Douyin tested other social features last year, including the ability to make video calls to strangers and play interactive games with them. That feature was not rolled out to all users, though.

In February, Douyin started a widespread test of a new payments feature. The app was an exclusive partner for the Spring Festival Gala – the world’s most-watched national TV broadcast – during which it handed out digital cash gifts.

The event was seen as a big opportunity for Douyin to promote its payment and social functions, but analysts did not expect it to be enough to challenge WeChat, which is well-entrenched thanks to its strong network effect as the place where most people in China store their social contacts.

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