Chinese internet giant and TikTok parent company, ByteDance recently said that it plans to discontinue two of its social media platforms Vigo Video and Vigo Lite in India. The company has reportedly asked its users from its biggest overseas market to move to TikTok.
In its message to users on Vigo apps today, ByteDance said it will help them migrate their videos to TikTok. On TikTok, “you will be able to show your talent to a larger group of friends. We are eager to see you [there]!” the message reads.
The two apps are kind of similar to TikTok as they allow users to create and share 15-sec long sketches and lip-syncing to songs. Both the apps posted a message early this week to announce that they would be discontinued at the end of October this year.
The parent company in a post, titled “A Farewell Letter”, said it was saddened to shut down the apps but didn’t provide any explanation for the decision.
“We want to thank all of our Vigo Video users for the time they have spent with us on the platform and providing us the opportunity to bring a little bit of joy into their lives,” it said.
The reason for the closure of the apps could be the number of users. India has been ByteDance’s biggest overseas market, yet both the apps struggled to gain users the way TikTok has. While TikTok has 200mn users in India, both the Vigo apps collectively have only 5.5mn users.
ByteDance has already discontinued the apps in Brazil and Middle East and is reportedly planning to shut it down in every other market as well. The announcement to shut down the apps follows the company’s decision to shut down its news aggregator service TopBuzz earlier this month.
Updated on June 15, 11:55am IST: the apps have already been discontinued in Brazil and the Middle East and will shut down in every other market, a spokesperson told TechCrunch. Monday’s announcement follows ByteDance shutting down its news aggregator service TopBuzz earlier this month.
What’s worth noting from this development is that Vigo was actively recruiting employees in the country and has a huge office space in Gurugram. Other recent job recruitment posts reveal that the company is looking to hire executives to aggressively explore ways to monetize its services in the country.
There has been no update as to what will happen with the employees or will they too, be moved into TikTok.
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