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YY CEO Li Xueling, holding the hammer,  at the New York Stock Exchange last year when YY's subsidiary Huya went public. Photo by Bloomberg

As TikTok’s Growth Slows, a Chinese Rival Gains Ground

By  |  Oct. 30, 2019 7:00 AM PDT
Photo: YY CEO Li Xueling, holding the hammer, at the New York Stock Exchange last year when YY's subsidiary Huya went public. Photo by Bloomberg

ByteDance, the Chinese developer of TikTok, the worldwide hit downloaded more than a billion times, was the first Chinese company to challenge Facebook and Snap on the global stage. But now, ByteDance is facing a Chinese challenger of its own, a short-form video-sharing app called Likee.

Launched two years ago and now owned by Nasdaq-listed YY Inc., Likee has quickly caught fire, becoming the world’s second most popular short video app after TikTok. Likee now has 81 million monthly active users, a nearly 400% increase from a year earlier, the company said in August. Much of Likee’s growth has come from India, where two-thirds of the app’s users reside, The Information has learned. The app also has caught on in Brazil and in Southeast Asia.

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