There Is No TikTok in China, Solely Douyin. Right here’s What It Is.

 There Is No TikTok in China, Solely Douyin. Right here’s What It Is.


In China, there isn’t a TikTok. There may be solely Douyin.

After President Biden signed a invoice on Wednesday forcing Chinese language firm ByteDance to promote its possession of TikTok, america moved one step nearer to an web with out the brief video app. The laws opened the door to a potential ban of the social media platform if TikTok fails to discover a U.S. government-approved purchaser inside a yr.

Douyin can be owned by ByteDance. It’s a staple of the Chinese language web the best way TikTok is in the remainder of the world. However as a result of it has no presence outdoors China, Douyin, which implies a “shaking sound” in Chinese language, isn’t as well-known globally.

However Douyin is vital to ByteDance’s funds. Its continued success might be a big think about how the father or mother firm assesses what it plans to do with TikTok. Will ByteDance succumb to political calls for from Washington, or will it refuse to promote TikTok and face the implications?

Right here is an outline of Douyin.

Douyin is the most well-liked short-video app in China, and it is without doubt one of the most visited social media platforms within the nation. As on TikTok, the movies on Douyin seem in a vertical format and customers swipe as much as get to the subsequent providing. There are different similarities to TikTok. The Douyin algorithm learns your pursuits from the way you work together with the movies you’re proven and feeds you an infinite stream of content material.

Douyin debuted in September 2016 in China, a yr earlier than ByteDance launched TikTok for abroad markets. Initially, Douyin targeted on China’s massive cities the place younger smartphone customers had been early adopters of recent social media. Douyin reached greater than 700 million lively month-to-month customers in Might, that means it was being utilized by a majority of China’s web customers, based on QuestMobile, a Chinese language information agency.

TikTok has extra customers on its platform, however Douyin is ByteDance’s money cow. Roughly 80 % of ByteDance’s $54 billion income within the first half of final yr got here from China, derived primarily from Douyin, based on The Info, a expertise information web site. The remaining 20 % got here from abroad markets primarily by TikTok.

Douyin is a thriving enterprise in China. The most important chunk of its revenue comes from distributing internet marketing alongside its library of video content material. The analysis agency eMarketer estimated that Douyin took in $21 billion in promoting income in 2023, or about two-thirds of Alphabet’s advert income from YouTube.

But it surely might need much more potential. In China, virtually all social media apps have buying elements, and Douyin is not any exception. Douyin has opened its personal on-line shopping center contained in the app the place distributors promote garments, electronics, groceries, brand-name items and low cost merchandise. Each transaction generates a fee or service price for Douyin.

One common type of commerce is reside video streams by influencers who peddle gadgets to audiences — think about Residence Purchasing Community meets a every day video weblog. The transaction worth of buying performed by livestreams on Douyin exceeded $200 billion in 2022, based on Statista, a knowledge and enterprise intelligence firm in Germany.

E-commerce in China is rising quick, too. Douyin is already the nation’s fourth-largest on-line retailer behind Alibaba, JD.com and Pinduoduo, and it’s rising a lot sooner than these extra established corporations, based on eMarketer. Douyin’s on-line commerce gross sales grew an estimated 60 % in 2023, eMarketer mentioned.

To attempt to money in on its site visitors, Douyin introduced an app referred to as Douyin Mall final month for Android customers in mainland China. The app isn’t in Apple’s App Retailer.

TikTok is accessible in additional than 150 international locations and areas in 75 languages, whereas Douyin can be utilized solely in China. The 2 apps have many related options, however they continue to be separate providers. TikTok customers can seek for accounts all around the world, however they can’t acquire entry to Douyin accounts in China — and vice versa.

TikTok’s viewers tends to be younger, however Douyin has a a lot older person base in China. Actually, it’s the most generally used and most well-liked app amongst Chinese language folks over 50 years outdated, based on a report launched by QuestMobile, a analysis agency. Douyin launched measures to stop habit for seniors, together with voice reminders or compelled interruptions to individuals who have been looking forward to too lengthy.

Douyin has change into an important platform for the Chinese language authorities to disseminate info and propaganda. In 2018, Douyin teamed up with 11 authorities departments and media organizations to assist enhance content material manufacturing to make their movies more practical at carrying their messages.

A senior official in The PLA Every day, the newspaper of China’s navy, as soon as wrote in an essay that there was an pressing want for navy media to hitch Douyin as a result of the platform had change into “a brand new house and a brand new place for ideological competitors between us and the enemies.”

Like different social media providers in China, Douyin follows the censorship guidelines of the Chinese language Communist Social gathering. It carefully removes video pertaining to subjects deemed delicate or inflammatory by the celebration, though it has proved a little bit tougher than text-based social media to regulate.

Among the many issues which have been restricted or eliminated up to now this yr are accounts of economists who spoke negatively about China’s economic system, in addition to brief dramas concerning the conflicts between mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law. The latter appeared to painting interfamily relations in a dramatically unfavourable means.



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