Musical.ly in action
Musical.ly, a lip-syncing app popular with young people, has been sold to Chinese tech giant By the way, it's worth $ 1bn (£ 750m).
Shanghai-based Musical.ly, founded three years ago, claims over 60 million monthly active users.
It's the first Chinese social media app to make it big in North America and Europe.
The move [by] integrating Musical.ly's global reach with Bytedance's massive user base in China and key Asian markets, we are creating a significant "Mushers '
On Musical.ly, users - or" musers "as" Zhang Yiming, Bytedance' s chief executive.
they're called - can record and share 15-second videos of themselves lip syncing to popular songs and makin g funny faces.
When editing, "musers" can change the speed of videos, add filters and play videos backwards.
Earlier this year, Musical.ly struck deals with Viacom, NBCUniversal and Hearst Magazine to produce original content aimed at younger audiences
The company also has a live streaming platform called Live.ly.
Musical.ly also has a live streaming platform called Live.ly.
Bytedance, meanwhile, is best known for its mobile app called Jinri Toutiao, or "Today's Headlines," which aggregates news and videos from hundreds of media outlets.
The app has (19459011)
It's helped by being one of China's hottest tech start-ups, with valuations reaching as high as $ 20 billion.
"For Musical.ly, it is a good price For Toutiao, it is a big step for its globalization strategy," says Yu Xue, an analyst at China-based market intelligence firm IDC.
"The short video market is incredibly hot in China this year," he added.
The deal is one of several concluded by Bytedata lately as it looks to expand its global presence. [19459011
In November 2016, Bytedance signed a licensing deal with Studio71, a multichannel network owned by German media group ProSiebenSat.1. Under the deal, Studio71's content will be substituted in Chinese and carried on Byedance's Top Buzz platform.
