Triller inks a strategic partnership with JioSaavn to embed videos in India’s biggest music streaming app.
Triller says the new deal with India’s JioSaavn is just the beginning. The JioSaavn app will also feature a button on the main screen to allow users to create their own Triller videos. The move comes on the heels of the Indian government banning Chinese-owned TikTok and 58 other apps from the country. Local startups are now rushing to fill the void left by those apps.
Local Indian apps like Zee5, Daily Hunt, and MX Player have stepped up to fill in the void. Triller says JioSaavn has over 300 million users in India – despite its Android app having fewer than 30 million weekly active users. A press release from JioSaavn itself says it only has 104 million monthly active users.
The deal may come as a surprise to those who are keeping up. Reliance Industries – the owner of JioSaavn – was all set to invest in TikTok before the ban. Now it looks like Triller is stepping up to take its place. Rishi Malhotra, co-founder and CEO of JioSaavn, says the Triller India partnership is a strategic one.
“Triller enables artists to create and express our culture in the most innovative ways. We are confident that this partnership will exponentially grow both companies,” Malhotra says of the partnership. The move shows how Indian companies are embracing other TikTok alternatives in the face of the ban.
TikTok’s rivals, like Triller and Byte, are growing exponentially because of India’s ban. The threatened ban in the United States is also having an exodus impact. Many TikTok stars in the US are flocking to other platforms and urging their followers to do the same.
TikTok is now suing the Trump administration over a pair of executive orders banning transactions in the US. TikTok argues that it did not have due process as the administration “paid no attention to facts and tried to insert itself into negotiations between private businesses.”
On Monday, the Wall Street Journal reported that Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg stoked fears about TikTok in Congress. He raised concerns about the threats Chinese social media apps may present to Americans during a speech about freedom of expression last year.
He also repeated that message behind the scenes in meetings with lawmakers. That revelation comes after Digital Music News reports that Facebook spent six months to a year trying to acquire Musical.ly. Ultimately, the app was acquired by ByteDance and transformed into TikTok.