Musical.ly and TikTok Merge to Become One Platform

China’s Beijing Bytedance Technology Co. announced on August 1 that it is shutting down the popular musical.ly video app and merge this short video platform into its other platform, TikTok. The two will merge as one upgraded app under the name of TikTok.

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The media giant acquired Musical.ly in December of last year for nearly $1 billion. TikTok, the overseas version of Douyin launched in September 2016, has become one of the most downloaded apps in the world. Its popularity has even exceeded its predecessor musical.ly, which was founded in 2014 in Shanghai. TikTok encourages users generated content that stems from broader real life moments while musical.ly is known for videos featuring singing and dancing to a background music. TikTok is more popular in Asia, and musical.ly has a larger user base in American and European countries, as Reuters reported.

According to TikTok’s statement, the new app brings together the best parts from both TikTok and musical.ly to offer an unified user experience and a wider global reach, while keeping existing creator accounts, content and fans. The merger of the two is definitely good news for global creators from different lifestyles and backgrounds as it will offer a more diverse content and even cultural environment.

Alex Zhu, co-founder of musical.ly and senior vice president of TikTok said that musical.ly recently reached a new milestone of 100 million monthly active users. It wants to capture the world’s creativity and knowledge under the new TikTok name and remind everyone to treasure every precious life moment.

“We are excited to enter into a new chapter. TikTok, the sound of a ticking clock, represents the short nature of the video platform,” he said, “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. ”