Spotify and Apple Music could face major competition...from TikTok?

The trademark is for a service called TikTok Music. Not only does the name imply that it’ll be a rival to the world’s best music streaming services, but the trademark application spells it out for us. ByteDance calls TikTok Music a smartphone and computer application that “enables users to purchase, play, share [and] download music” as well as offering the ability to listen to non-downloadable (read: streamed) audio and video.

That’s a Spotify and Apple Music clone description if we ever heard one.

ByteDance has also described the service as having advertising services, perhaps implying that there will be an ad-supported option like Spotify’s free tier. However, we’ll have to wait and see what it announces, if it launches the service at all.

While it’s more than likely that we’ll see TikTok Music launch soon, we can’t take this trademark as a guarantee. Not only might ByteDance decide to scrap its plans for the service, but it could also face some problems from various governments. 

Lawmakers in the US and UK have already expressed concerns about TikTok and its connections to China. If ByteDance can’t alleviate these worries then we could see it lose its ability to operate in certain parts of the world. 

If that happens we can say bye-bye to TikTok and any potential expansion plans like TikTok Music.

TikTok Music could change the game, again

Assuming there are no bumps in the road though, TikTok Music sounds like a pretty logical next step for the social media company. TikTok is one of the best ways to discover new music, thanks to dance and meme trends hijacking snippets of songs and making them go viral.

Our own Daryl Baxter even used the app to rework his wedding playlist.

With that in mind, TikTok Music would likely make finding the full versions of catchy tracks way easier – especially if you’re looking for a cover or a remix rather than an original song. Rather than having to scroll through track lists on rival services, we could see users being able to press a couple of buttons on TikTok and instantly being sent to the full track on TikTok Music.

If we’re lucky, we might even see some of TikTok’s creativity brought into TikTok Music. The trademark discusses giving users the ability to edit video and audio – perhaps letting people create and share their own remixes and music videos.

We’ll have to wait and see what unfolds over the coming weeks and months but Apple and Spotify will want to watch out. TikTok is already taking over Google Maps as the best way to discover new places to visit, these other apps could soon find their user base snapped up by the app, as well.