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ByteDance
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TikTok owner ByteDance kills off chat app Feiliao in sign of business consolidation

  • Feiliao, an instant messenger that was relaunched as a Clubhouse-like audio social app in July, has disappeared from app stores in China
  • Recent attempts by the world’s most valuable tech unicorn to diversity its business have focused on e-commerce rather than social media

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Pedestrians pass by the ByteDance headquarters in Beijing. The company’s Feiliao social app is no longer available for download. Photo: AP Photo
Coco Feng

A social networking app from ByteDance, the Chinese owner of globally popular short video-sharing platform TikTok, has been taken offline in a fresh sign that the world’s most valuable unicorn is retreating from some non-core businesses to consolidate operations.

Feiliao, launched as an instant messenger in 2019 and known globally as Flipchat, is no longer available in various app stores, the Post has found.
The app temporarily became unavailable for download for two months earlier this year before it was relaunched in July as an audio messaging service. That move followed the sudden popularity of voice-based social network Clubhouse, which briefly took China’s online world by storm before it was blocked in the country.

ByteDance has dissolved the team behind Feiliao and transferred members to other departments, according to Chinese media 36Kr, suggesting that the app is being shut down. Existing users can no longer access the app’s services.

ByteDance declined to comment on Monday.

Feiliao was one of ByteDance’s major attempts to crack China’s social networking market consisting of more than a billion users. The field is currently dominated by Tencent Holdings’ multipurpose app WeChat, known in China as Weixin.

Other social apps from ByteDance have also failed to take off. The Instagram-like photo-sharing platform Xintu no longer exists, while the Snapchat-like video-based messaging app Duoshan is only open to users of Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok.
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