TikTok parent company ByteDance wants to challenge Spotify with its own music streaming service, Resso.
The company launched Resso a couple of days ago in India, Brazil, and Indonesia, with plans of expanding it to more than 12 countries. Moreover, it plans to integrate Resso into TikTok and then scale it to serve as a major platform to distribute music in the global market.
Obviously, Resso’s success in the music streaming space will depend on its music catalog. According to the Wall Street Journal, Bytedance has been talking with music labels to strengthen its own offerings.
However, music executives are concerned about the difficulties of making money on the platform in the three markets it’s currently in, noting that converting free users into paying customers is in the low percentages. One big player, Sony Music, has already pulled its catalog from Resso.
Still, the prospect of a TikTok music streaming service is intriguing. TikTok already has a huge user base. At the end of 2021, the platform has over 1.2 billion active users. It’s even being used as a search engine.
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Converting some of them into paying customers for music streaming could potentially propel the service into the upper echelon of music streaming, joining Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, and, to some extent, YouTube Music.
