Qimai

Jul 19, 2022

(Yicai Global) July 19 -- ByteDance, the Chinese owner of TikTok, has introduced another mobile application to take on Xiaohongshu, an Alibaba-backed leader of e-commerce recommendations. ByteDance launched Kesong this month but the new lifestyle app has fallen to the 127th spot on the iOS social app list, down from No. 32 which was its position less than two weeks ago, according to data platform Qimai. Downloads were estimated to tally 64,000 times and the app was given a 3.9 rating on Apple's App Store. Tencent Holdings, JD.Com, NetEase, and other Chinese internet firms have made at least 15 attempts to build their own products similar to Xiaohongshu between 2018 and April 2022, according to public information. But none of them have managed to beat Xiaohongshu in user numbers. Kesong has a highly similar market positioning, products, and content types to Xioahongshu, also known as Little Red Book. But what is different is that users of Douyin, ByteDance's Chinese short-video platform, can directly link their videos with e-commerce content on Kesong. Still, industry insiders say that Kesong doesn't have decisive advantages to beat Xioahongshu in terms of online retail recommendations. But if ByteDance is willing to spend a lot of time and money on the platform, it might succeed, some Xiaohongshu influencers said to Yicai Global. Douyin's daily active users were at more than 600 million, according to data published in May. Meanwhile, Xiaohongshu had about 200 million monthly active users as of April, according to the Shanghai-based firm. This is not the first time ByteDance is trying the enter the e-commerce sector based on influencers' recommendations. In 2018, the Beijing-based tech giant introduced an app called Xincao which roughly means recommending premium goods for users to buy based on their personal interests and algorithm. However, it shut down the platform after one year. ByteDance lacks a platform for young people, especially young women, so that is why it needs a Xiaohongshu-like platform, Zhang Yi, iiMedia Research's chief executive, told Yicai Global. Douyin is a platform targeting the general public, while news platform Jinri Toutiao's target users are young and middle-aged people, but mostly male, Zhang added. Xiaohongshu, one of China's most successful platforms for user-reviewed goods, had signed up nearly 80,000 brands as of December 2020. Some 90 percent of the app's users were searching for information about certain brands on the platform before placing an order. Editors: Shi Yi, Emmi Laine