TikTok to shut down music streaming platform in November

TikTok, a global short-form video service has confirmed it will close down its music streaming platform, TikTok Music, worldwide on November 28.

The TikTok Music service is currently in only five countries; Indonesia, Brazil, Australia, Singapore and Mexico. This means that the service will end in these countries.

According to report from musicbusinessworldwide.com, the move is to allow TikTok focus its resources on its ‘Add To Music App’ feature, which enables TikTok users to save music tracks they discover on the video platform to playlists on their preferred music audio streaming service.

In a statement, Ole Obermann, Global Head of Music Business Development, TikTok, told MBW: “Our Add to Music App feature has already enabled hundreds of millions of track saves to playlists on partner music streaming services.

“We will be closing TikTok Music at the end of November in order to focus on our goal of furthering TikTok’s role in driving even greater music listening and value on music streaming services, for the benefit of artists, songwriters and the industry.”

TikTok Music was officially launched in Indonesia and Brazil last summer and was licensed by all three major music companies.

The app was introduced in these regions as a successor to TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance’s Resso, a long-running music platform.

In October last year, the app was also launched in Australia, Singapore and Mexico but without Universal Music’s recorded music catalog due to a licensing fallout between the two parties. TikTok has resolved its issues with UMG.

TikTok’s ‘Add To Music App’ feature has so far partnered with Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon; TikTok users in over 180 countries have access to the service.

TikTok suggest the company is currently in discussions with other music streaming subscription platforms about partnering on ‘Add to Music App’.

Last week, highlighting its power to drive consumption on third-party streaming platforms, TikTok released a telling stat: according to the ByteDance company, more than a quarter (27%) of the Top 100 singles in Germany last year went viral on TikTok before becoming a hit on the German singles chart.