TikTok’s Chinese version Douyin adds payments app
Douyin, the Chinese version of popular short form video app, TikTok, just added online payments to the app.
Reuters reports that the company is busy expanding into e-commerce, as Douyin Pay (Douyin Zhifu) has been added to the app’s options.
Other payment tools on Douyin include WeChat Pay and Alipay.
Users can, for instance, receive a cash-filled electronic red packet from a Douyin campaign and deposit that cash to their bank accounts.
Douyin Pay (Douyin Zhifu) has been added to the app’s options.
“The set-up of Douyin Pay is to supplement the existing major payment options, and to ultimately enhance user experience on Douyin,” a Douyin spokesperson tells Reuters.
Brands and retailers can already redirect users to a product page by including a link in a video. Now, users of the app can checkout and pay for goods using Douyin Pay instead of other options.
Douyin’s parent, ByteDance, the Chinese start-up behind TikTok and other popular social networking apps reportedly generated $5.6 billion in revenue in the first three months of 2020.
Its first-quarter figure represents a 130% growth in revenue year-over-year, according to Reuters, which makes the move towards payments seems like a natural progression for the company to want in on the action.
ByteDance snapped up a payments licence by acquiring a third-party payments firm.
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Last September, a company controlled by ByteDance founder, Zhang Yiming, bought out a payments solution provider called, Wuhan Hezhong Yibao Technology. The licence allows Douyin, Toutiao and other ByteDance services to offer payment features.
Other internet giants, such as e-commerce giant JD.com and food delivery service Meituan, have also established their own payment methods.
The country’s mobile banking market logged some CNH 56.2 trillion ($8 trillion) worth of transactions in the last three months of 2019, according to domestic consultancy Analysys.
It estimates Alipay commands 55% of the market and that Tencent’s fintech business, most of which is WeChat Pay, has 39%.
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