Bytedance which is owner of the popular video platform TikTok is developing its own smartphone, revealed a report by Financial Times today. The software firm had earlier this year captured talent from Chinese smartphone maker Smartisan and this would be its first ever gig in hardware.
There’s a lot we don’t know about the smartphone but it seems the phone will be an affordable mid-ranger and come with pre-installed apps like content aggregation platform TopBuzz and news platform News Republic, both of which are owned by Bytedance.
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It’s also not known what kind of specifications the handset will have but the shallow report suggests that the handset will be aimed at teenagers. That’s not surprising considering most TikTok users are in that exact category.
Traditionally, it’s been seen that most software companies that ventured in the hardware space have not had much success (especially in the smartphone segment). Case in point, both Amazon and Facebook tried to make their own smartphones. The former with the Fire Phone and the latter partnering with HTC, both of which quickly went into oblivion. TikTok also has a huge user base but does that warrant making a dedicated smartphone? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section.
