ByteDance has been very busy of late. Or, to be more precise, the rumour mill around ByteDance has been very busy of late. Only recently the company behind TikTok was reported to be looking into building its own music streaming service in “poorer countries” in the autumn, with rumours of deals in place with T-Series and Times Music to launch it in India.
Now the Financial Times (via The Verge) is suggesting that it is developing a smartphone that will come pre-loaded with its apps, including TikTok, as well as its rumoured music streaming service.
The Chinese company already has a partnership with phone manufacturer Smartisan but the FT was already throwing cold water on its own story by suggesting that attempts by both Amazon and Facebook to launch their own smartphones met with general apathy. That said, with a $3bn funding round last October that valued the company at $75bn (making it the most valuable startup in the world at the time), ByteDance has no shortage of cash. And with no shortage of cash comes no shortage of ambition. With a music-centric social app, a music subscription service and a smartphone, maybe this is what a full-stack music company could look like in 2019.
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