While TikTok’s fate continues to evolve, its smaller rival, Likee, has caused a sensation worldwide, gaining 150 million active users per month in June.
This is according to the effects report of Chinese Internet company Joyy, owner of Likee. By comparison, TikTok had about two hundred million active users by early 2020, an investor wisely said at TechCrunch. This means that your MAU will be much larger and that TikTok has experienced explosive expansion since the COVID-19 epidemic that kept others at home. Although a possible ban and forced sale looms in the United States, TikTok’s expansion has only declined slightly.
Likee has something else to offer because influencers can make cash seamlessly with the virtual gifts they get from fans, he observed The Ken sharply (paywall). TikTok, on the other hand, prioritizes content consumers.
“I think creators are paid and monetization helps,” Adam Blacker, vice president of app analytics company Apptopia, told TechCrunch.
In its market, the United States, Likee is one of TikTok’s fastest developing rivals. From early July to early August, Likee amassed 7.25 million downloads, eclipsing Hollywood-backed Triller, TikTok Dubsmash’s former rival and the Vine Byte sequel, discovered Apptopia.
Joyy, a Nasdaq-listed company, remains little known on the outside of its domestic market. Founded in 2005, Joyy has popularized the phenomenon of virtual gifts in live streaming through her flagship YY website. The public can offer influencers virtual and other flowers, which they can then convert into cash. YY’s monetization style has been so successful that it has spawned live rivals of all kinds. When the market was saturated, Joyy turned to the outside world.
In 2016, Joyy’s founder and CEO, Li Xueling, presented Bigo in Singapore as a separate entity to be subject to the same investment strain as a state-owned company. The Bigo Live live streaming app debuted in the hope of replicating YY’s success, and when the short videos were in vogue, Bigo implemented Likee. Between June 2019 and June 2020, Likee earned 70 million UFU worldwide.
In June, Joyy reached a total of 457 million cellular MOUs, 91% of which come from non-Chinese markets. As Bigo profit generator, Joyy consolidated it into the balance sheet after a full acquisition last year.
Bigo’s healthy overseas growth should spell confidence for Joyy. But when Li was asked by local media whether he wanted to fight with TikTok for dominance, he said his company “won’t be able to beat it.” He went on to humbly remark that Zhang Yiming, the founder of TikTok parent ByteDance, “is the most far-sighted person I’ve ever seen.”
China YY considers live broadcast with Bigo acquisition for $1.450 million