The creator of the social network is experimenting in two emerging countries with a Spotify competitor. Its low price is adapted to these markets, while logically integrating new social functions.

TikTok in the big bath of streaming music. Its publisher, the Chinese start-up ByteDance, attacks Spotify and Apple Music by launching its equivalent, called Resso. For the moment only available in India and Indonesia, the service is billed in the first country 119 rupees.

According to Bloomberg, Resso has been available for about six months, but its existence was relatively unnoticed. The application has only been downloaded by 27,000 users, according to Sensor Tower. A drop of water in these two countries with a total of more than 1.6 billion people.

Waiting for the majors

But that was before ByteDance began to promote its application at the end of November. The figure should now climb faster. However its catalog is still limited, only the rights of Indian labels like T-Series and Times Music have been acquired. As explained by the Financial Times last November, TikTok is still negotiating rights with the three essential record majors Universal, Sony and Warner.

This is the dilemma for these three companies: do not miss the streaming market in these emerging countries, while agreeing to earn much less money than elsewhere given the limited income of their inhabitants. Hard to miss, as this market will explode in the months and years to come.

Social functions inherited from TikTok

In the meantime, Resso is trying to differentiate itself from its competitors with features such as real-time lyrics display (not available in Spotify), the ability to comment on songs, and also to generate videos accompanied by music, as in TikTok.

Saying that ByteDance has the wind in its sails is a euphemism, the Chinese start-up is valued $ 75 billion, as its potential seems immense in the eyes of investors. Riding on the success of TikTok, the company recently launched in China a smartphone integrating all its other services.