The owners of TikTok will reportedly launch a new music streaming service later this year. The new platform, which will go by the name Feilo, will compete with streaming giants like Spotify and Apple Music in China.

According to Chinese tech news outlet 36kr, ByteDance have been working on their Feilo project since 2019. The streaming service is reportedly the brainchild of ByteDance’s Vice President of Product and Strategy, Alex Zhu. The project has been using the code name “luna” for internal discussions.

“Byte began to explore music business as early as 2019, and once launched a domestic music streaming project ‘code-named W,’ but it ended in failure during the development process due to serious lack of copyright and vague product positioning,” reports 36kr. “The project was initially positioned as a music player, but due to insufficient music copyrights, it was later transformed into a music community product, and due to the narrow product positioning, it was tried internally for about one year and then terminated in 2020.”

ByteDance has dipped its toe into international streaming before, launching an app called Resso in India in 2020.

TikTok is now watched longer than YouTube by users in the U.K. and U.S., according to app monitoring firm App Annie. YouTube still retains the top spot for overall time spent on apps, but TikTok’s 700 million monthly users spend more time on the app on average compared to YouTube’s two billion monthly users. [via NME]

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