Musical.ly‘s explosive growth to more than 100 million monthly users in North America has allowed artists to skyrocket their careers. Unfortunately, due to a similar platform operating in a similar geographic region, Musical.ly is shutting down and merging with TikTok. The Beijing-based Bytedance Technology Co. purchased Musical.ly for $800 million back in November of 2017.
TikTok boasts roughly 500 million monthly active users, most of them residing in Asia. The existing users in Musical.ly will be merged into the newest version of the TikTok application. With most of Musical.ly’s users being younger kids and pre-teens, it will be interesting to see how many users use TikTok.
In a statement to Reuters, TikTok’s head of global marketing Stefan Heinrich said, “Musical.ly and TikTok currently operate in complementary geographies without much overlap and as both platforms continue to grow rapidly now is the time to bring them together. Supporting one platform will allow us to expand our on-the-ground presence more quickly and easily – building local teams to support each market.”
Furthermore, Alex Zhu, now the SVP of TikTok, states that, “Combining Musical.ly and TikTok is a natural fit given the shared mission of both experiences – to create a community where everyone can be a creator.”
