TikTok has admitted defeat in music streaming

Niall Horan performed at TikTok’s live music event, TikTok In The Mix.

TikTok is shutting down its music-streaming app, TikTok Music, on November 28.

The app, which blends social features with music streaming, first launched in July 2023 in Indonesia and Brazil, later expanding into Singapore, Australia, and Mexico a couple of weeks later. It never arrived in the US, despite the company filing a trademark application for the name in 2022.

“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,” Ole Obermann, TikTok’s global head of music business development, told B-17 in a statement.

TikTok Music’s shuttering marks the end of a four-year experiment in streaming by the company’s owner, ByteDance. Before the launch of TikTok Music, ByteDance ran a similar music-streaming app called Resso in India, Indonesia, and Brazil.

It’s unclear how successful TikTok Music was at building a user base in the five countries where it launched. On Apple’s app store, TikTok Music is the 28th most popular music-streaming app in Indonesia and the 71st most popular in Brazil. Currently, the app doesn’t rank in the top 100 among music apps in the other countries where it operates.

The decision to get into the crowded streaming business made sense for TikTok, even if it was ambitious. The company had spent years establishing itself as an important platform for music discovery. Songs that go viral on TikTok often chart on the Billboard Hot 100 and Spotify Viral 50. Why not send those TikTok music fans to a streaming app it owns?

The company has a dedicated music team that focuses on working with artists and labels, as well as finding new ways to make money. Outside of launching a music streamer, TikTok built a song-distribution tool called SoundOn, partnered with SiriusXM on a radio station, hosted its own live music concert, and worked closely with major artists on song and album promotions.

But TikTok’s relationship with the music industry hasn’t always been rainbows and unicorns. The company went to war with Universal Music Group over a contract dispute earlier this year. Some of its experiments in the music business, such as hiring A&R staffers, have also edged into record labels’ territory.

Ultimately, a lot of the company’s battles with the industry came down to money. Its music-streaming app presented an opportunity for TikTok to feed revenue back to rights holders, incentivizing artists and labels to provide access to songs on its main app (a partnership strategy that YouTube pioneered around a decade ago).

Still, the music industry is unlikely to shy away from TikTok any time soon. TikTok is a hit-maker, and any savvy music marketer will continue to use the platform to make songs trend.

Going forward, the company will likely focus on its “Add To Music App” feature, which lets TikTok users add songs or pre-save tracks they hear on TikTok to other streaming services like Spotify, Amazon Music, and Apple Music.