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TikTok Music goes live in Indonesia and Brazil
By Chris Cooke | Published on Friday 7 July 2023
The long anticipated TikTok-branded music service has launched in Indonesia and Brazil. It very much builds upon Resso, the existing music streaming app operated by TikTok owner Bytedance, which was already available in both those markets.
Licensing talks around TikTok Music have been ongoing for some time. All three majors and indie label repping Merlin are on board for the launch, which is mainly interesting because Sony Music previously pulled its content from Resso.
In terms of the TikTok Music experience, it has all the social media style elements that were notable features of Resso, which is basically being replaced by the new app and is set to be switched off in September.
However, TikTok Music will be more closely connected to the main TikTok app, and it seems likely that there will be further integration between the two apps as things evolve.
That connection is important for various reasons. Not least because TikTok Music will not offer a free tier. Indeed, the free tier of Resso was phased out in May. Which means that – while Spotify uses its free tier to hook people in and then upsell them a premium subscription – TikTok will need to do the upselling via its main video-sharing app.
In terms of pricing, in Brazil a monthly TikTok Music subscription will be $3.49 and in Indonesia it’s $3.25, although Android users in the latter will only pay $2.96 a month for the first year. Monthly subscriptions in emerging markets are always significantly cheaper than in Europe and North America, though those launch price points do slightly undercut Spotify in both markets.
TikTok is remaining tight lipped on its plans to expand TikTok Music into other markets. Resso is currently also available in India, which makes it an obvious contender for the next place where TikTok Music will go live.
Commenting on the new service, TikTok’s Global Head Of Music Business Development Ole Obermann says: “We are pleased to introduce TikTok Music, a new kind of service that combines the power of music discovery on TikTok with a best-in-class streaming service”.
“TikTok Music will make it easy for people in Indonesia and Brazil to save, download and share their favourite viral tracks from TikTok”, he goes on. “We are excited about the opportunities TikTok Music presents for both music fans and artists and the great potential it has for driving significant value to the music industry”.
