TikTok parent ByteDance already has a music app named Resso which is available in India.
TikTok may be getting a music app soon. TikTok is popular for its short videos, but since the platform is often people’s source of new music, it would only make sense for parent company ByteDance to launch a TikTok-branded music app.
According to patent reports cited in a report by Insider, TikTok parent ByteDance had filed a trademark application with the US Trademark Office for “TikTok Music” in May. According to the filing, the service would let users purchase, play, share, and download music. It would also allow them to create, share, and recommend playlists, comment on music, and livestream audio and video, according to the documents cited in the report.
Now, TikTok parent ByteDance already has a music app named Resso which was launched in 2020. The app is available in India, Brazil, and Indonesia and has some of the same features that have been described in the above-mentioned patent filing. ByteDance even uses TikTok to redirect users to Resso in Brazil. Users can directly go to Resso to listen to the full version of songs that they may have liked in a short video on TikTok.
The Resso app has about 40 million monthly users in India, Brazil, and Indonesia as of November 2021, which is not bad for a recently-launched app. In India, despite there being a ban on ByteDance’s popular TikTok, Resso is quite popular and the application saw a growth of 304 percent in active users between January 2021 to January 2022. Spotify, in comparison, only grew 38 percent.
Given these numbers, a ‘TikTok Music’ app with the branding will give big players like Spotify, YouTube Music and Apple Music something to worry about.