Chinese company ByteDance, which owns the international short video sharing platform TikTok, is preparing to launch an ambitious new project.
In the fall of 2019, a music service will be officially introduced to compete with Apple Music and Spotify. It is assumed that at the first stage the service will be launched in markets where the audience of American music services has not yet reached high levels. In particular, in India, the Chinese company has registered the rights to the country's largest labels T-Series and Times Music. In China, as of 2019, the company has ties to over 800 labels.
The new service will provide both free and commercial access to music content. Details of the service and the cost of the subscription have not yet been disclosed. According to sources in the market, its premiere may take place at the end of the second quarter.
China's ByteDance, which is preparing to launch a rival to Spotify, is one of the most valuable technology companies in recent years. Its value today is estimated at more than $75 billion. The main product is Toutiao, an aggregator of news collections, whose audience is estimated at more than 120 million people a day.