TikTok Continues Its Music Streaming Push

TikTok Continues Its Music Streaming Push

TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, is moving forward with plans to bring music streaming to its popular video sharing app. TikTok already offers a music streaming service, called Resso, but it’s currently only available in India, Indonesia, and Brazil. Now, ByteDance is initiating talks with music labels to bring Resso to other countries around the world.

With Resso, users are able to discover songs within TikTok and then easily save that song to their private library. Notably, the company’s first wave of music streaming expansion would not include the US.

Watch Out Spotify, Apple

Since TikTok is one of the most popular apps in the world, this news should certainly make other music streamers like Spotify (SPOT), Apple (AAPL), or YouTube (GOOGL) at least a little bit nervous.

Thanks to its viral nature, TikTok already plays an influential role in modern music. There are numerous instances where viral TikTok videos helped propel a song to the top of the charts. For example, TikTok videos featuring “Heat Waves” by Glass Animals became popular and helped the song spend five weeks at No. 1 on the charts.

Introducing music streaming would allow users to stay within TikTok’s ecosystem and eliminate the need for them to leave the app for Spotify or Apple.

Don’t Delete Spotify Yet

Although this is bad news for other major music streamers, TikTok appears unlikely to completely upend the streaming sector. The music industry is notoriously complex when it comes to dividing rights among artists, labels, and platforms. This implies that it could take years for TikTok to negotiate and get the rights to popular music.

Additionally, so far Resso’s “freemium” business model, which includes a free tier and a paid tier, has struggled to convert free users into paying customers. That conversion rate reportedly sits in the low single digits. This may be an early sign that TikTok would be better off sticking to short form videos.

TikTok is the latest company to try and compete with Spotify, Apple, and Youtube. But the app’s immense popularity as a video streaming channel doesn’t guarantee that same level of success with music streaming. For now, TikTok may remain the king of helping songs go viral — even if you click elsewhere to listen to the full song.

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