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BEIJING, October 14 (TMTPOST)—Spotify and other music streaming service providers may have to brace increasing competitions from ByteDance.

Source: Visual China

ByteDance has discussed with music labels for worldwide expansion of music streaming service, seeking to compete with industry leaders such as Spotify, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter. The report said ByteDance aims to integrate the music business within TikTok, and upgrade one of the world’s most popular short video sharing apps to a platform for music distribution across the globe.

In particular, ByteDance in recent months has been working to expand Resso, its music streaming service launched in India, Indonesia and Brazil, to more than a dozen of new markets, according to the sources. Discussions about the music streaming are said to have hurdles, such as disagreements on how to value TikTok’s promotional benefit for the labels, and Beijing’s possible involvement with the service.

ByteDance didn’t comment on the report, nor did TikTok. If the news is accurate, and talks smoothly conclude with a deal, the upcoming global expansion would place the Chinese tech giant in direct competition with Spotify, Apple Music and other major players in music streaming service.

The report also marks ByteDance’s latest effort to broaden its global reach when the Chinese tech industry is facing various headwinds, from the Covid-19 lockdown, U.S. export curbs, to economic slowdown.

In the second quarter of the year, Tencent missed analysts’ estimates in both the top line and bottom line. Its revenue fell 3.2% year-over-year (YoY), the first ever yearly decline for the Chinese tech giant, while the net income dropped 56% YoY to RMB18.6 billion, much weaker than market projection of RMB25.03 billion. Alibaba booked better-than-expected revenue but fell by 0.09% YoY, suggesting revenue growth for the first time stagnated.

Unlike its listed rivals which regularly disclose financial results, ByteDance, as a privately-held company, rarely publicizes such data. The company recorded $61.7 billion of revenue in 2021, increasing almost 80% from the previous year, while its operating losses that year rose to $7.15 billion, more than tripling losses in the year 2020, The Wall Street Journal quoted an internal financial report earlier this month. Factors offset the rapid revenue growth reportedly include ByteDance’s aggressive spending habits and unrealized market losses on convertible securities.

关键词： with music said billion streaming