TikTok targets views of smart TV crowd
It is early days for Chinese social media app TikTok’s foray into the TV app store. Can it gain good traction with users?
It is early days for Chinese social media app TikTok – it launched only about six months ago in the app stores of smart TVs in Australia and the US – but how successful it will be is an open question, according to a representative of one of the world’s biggest TV companies.
“As far as I know, TikTok is not in the ranks of, let’s say, the top five or top 10 in terms of smart TV apps,” Samsung’s global lead of lifestyle TV products, Wonki Kim, said of the popular Chinese video app.
This is in contrast to YouTube, which continues to rise, he said.
Mr Kim, who previously worked with LG and Daewoo electronics, made the remarks at a recent roundtable in Berlin that coincided with the Internationale Funkausstellung Berlin, the world’s oldest and largest trade show, which dates back to 1924.
Asked about TikTok’s progress in the TV market, an Australian spokeswoman would not provide user numbers or downloads but said the company would continue to test and invest in its app.
“The app is still in the early stages with testing underway in Australia and around the world,” she said. “We will continue to enhance the product through regular improvements.”
More broadly, TikTok Australia overtook rival social media platform Snapchat in June, garnering an audience of 8.5 million customers, according to the company. Snapchat reached 7.5 million local users in April.
TikTok also appears to be the app of choice for local businesses, 350,000 of which use the platform to grow their customer base and advertise products.
If it proves to be the case that TikTok’s popularity is limited to mobile devices that support its vertical format, Mr Kim said it may be that some users were not as comfortable watching videos suggested to them by an algorithm on a larger TV.
“My … feeling is that TikTok is very personal … it’s your screen and feed. I don’t know how many people want to watch their TikTok feed on an 85-inch screen,” Mr Kim said.
Internet studies professor Tama Leaver, from Perth’s Curtin University, agreed.
“TikTok’s ‘for you page’ algorithm is a more effective algorithm than any other content recommendation algorithm out there,” Professor Leaver said, referring to the page on which the platform suggests videos based on a user’s interaction with previous videos. “While it does randomly insert certain things to test out whether that is something the user might like, it’s also … drawing on as many possible signals as it can to intensify a user’s viewing experience for what it thinks they already like.”
While he wasn’t aware of any official statistics surrounding the accuracy of TikTok’s algorithm, Professor Leaver said the difference between time spent on TikTok and other apps was “something astronomical”: TikTok typically held users engaged for nearly an hour, while most apps were about a third.
“There are more hours spent by users on TikTok than any other social media platform.”
Joseph Lam travelled to Berlin as a guest of Samsung.
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