Asian Tech Press (Mar. 1) --TikTok's Chinese version Douyin is launching its first music streaming product "Qishui Music", in the face of China's market saturation in short-form video.

According to Chinese media reports, Douyin has recently tested its first music app, Qishui Music, which is translated to Soda Music, in a small area of China. Currently, the new music streaming platform contains a library of 10 million songs, but is mainly focused on niche ones, some of which are available only with a membership.

TikTok, the short video app launched by Chinese technology company ByteDance, is the most popular non-gaming app worldwide. Short video users in China have been growing, but the growth rate fell off a cliff in 2018, which means that the market for short videos in the Asian country is becoming saturated.

There is no doubt that as ByteDance's biggest cash cow, Douyin will face the challenge of topping out Chinese short-video users and urgently needs to find the next track to be able to cash in.

The market for online music services in China is expected to reach 24.2 billion yuan in 2022, growing rapidly. With the liberalization of exclusive music rights in China and the withdrawal of Alibaba's streaming app Xiami Music, the Chinese online music industry has a new opportunity and market space here.

Douyin has the opportunity to make the online music business its new growth driver if it can seize the moment.

It's worth noting that since Douyin's music copyrights are less than Tencent Music Entertainment Group (TME) and NetEase Cloud Music, Qishui Music focuses on niche music and uses a membership payment system.

How to make users actively pay for Qishui Music's niche music, is the next issue that Douyin needs to consider. After all, TME and NetEase Cloud Music have gone a longer way in the membership business from loss to profit.