多闪：Bytedance takes on Tencent with video chat app

Bytedance takes on Tencent with video chat app

Financial Times

Chinese technology company Bytedance has launched a new standalone chat app called “Duoshan”, Chinese for “flashes”, allowing users to record and send each other private short videos that disappear after 72 hours.

Known for producing viral content and addictive apps, Bytedance is seeking to muscle its way into China’s social media space.

By launching Duoshan, Bytedance is seeking to take on more entrenched rivals, such as Tencent’s ubiquitous chat and payment app WeChat. Bytedance also is seeking to pivot at a time when short video and livestreaming face dimmer prospects after concerted regulatory crackdown on viral content.

Now worth an estimated $75bn after a fundraising round last September, Bytedance has become one of China’s most high profile tech start-ups, launching a slew of short video and media apps including Tik Tok, its globally popular short video app, and Jinri Toutiao or Today’s Headlines, a news aggregation app.

At Tuesday’s launch event in Beijing, Bytedance said that Tik Tok now had 250m daily active users.

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