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Tencent shuts down another app meant to compete with ByteDance in further consolidation of content operations

  • Tencent notified users of Kandian to back up their data by August 15, when the app will stop working, but some features will still be accessible on QQ
  • The social media giant has been consolidating its content operations to deal with a slowing economy and stagnating growth

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Chinese internet giant Tencent Holdings said it would shut down its Kandian platform on August 15, but some features would still be available on QQ. Photo: SCMP
Iris Deng
Chinese internet giant Tencent Holdings plans to shut down its content creation app Kandian next Monday, further consolidating its content business in a broad corporate shift to favour efficiency over expansion.

Kandian will cease operations and shut down servers by the end of day on August 15 as part of “adjustments in business development strategy”, according to an announcement on the app. Tencent notified users to back up their data because they will be unable to use the app once it is closed.

However, Kandian content and certain services will continue to be accessible through the Mini World function of QQ, Tencent’s original chat app that has recently seen a resurgence in popularity among Generation Z. Mini World is a short video function for QQ that remains in beta testing and is currently only accessible to certain users.

Tencent launched Kandian in 2019, offering a mix of social media, news and short video content through QQ and WeChat, along with a few dedicated apps. The Kandian app helped users create and edit the images and videos they wanted to post.

Kandian was one of Tencent’s efforts to contend with rising competition from ByteDance, operator of the news aggregation app Jinri Toutiao and short video platform Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok.

The tech giant distributed 3 billion yuan (US$443.6 million) in subsidies to 1 million content creators on Kandian in 2020 to lure more users to the platform, which enabled Kandian to attract 240 million daily active users across its apps in March that year, with the average user spending 58 minutes on the platform per day, according to iResearch data.

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