Music streaming services Apple Music and Spotify could soon face low-priced competition from the Chinese-owned company, ByteDance – the owner of short video clip sharing app TikTok.
The Financial Times reports ByteDance is currently in talks with record companies – including Universal Music, Sony Music and Warner Music – for global licensing deals to include their music libraries on its new music subscription service. The U.S. is one of the company’s target markets.
FT, quoting the usual “people briefed on the plans,” says the Beijing-based technology company aims to launch the music streaming service as soon as next month, initially in emerging markets such as India, Indonesia and Brazil, before a future opening in the U.S.
The TikTok service currently has around 1 billion users around the globe, with 80 million downloads in the United States alone. This provides a large potential user base for the company’s streaming music service.
ByteDance is said to including sharing options within the new app:
In addition to on-demand music, the planned ByteDance streaming app would include a library of short video clips that listeners could search through and synch to songs as they listen, according to music executives who received demos of the service. Users could send these clips to their friends, as the app aims to encourage sharing and virality, and is designed for mobile phones with vertical-sized videos.
While pricing isn’t yet known, FT Says the service is expected to cost less than the $9.99 per month that both Apple Music and Spotify charge for a single user account.
(Via 9to5Mac)