Amazon created the Fire Phone to promote its services and Facebook partnered with HTC on a dedicated smartphone. Both products turned out to be complete failures, but that isn’t stopping the developers of viral app TikTok from creating their own device.
Industry sources have claimed TikTok’s owner, ByteDance, is currently developing its own smartphone that’ll arrive pre-installed with the company’s range of apps which also include content aggregation platform TopBuzz and news platform News Republic.
The smartphone will apparently be created by talent ByteDance acquired earlier this year from Chinese smartphone brand Smartisan. Details about the design and specs haven’t yet been revealed, but the device will most likely focus on the budget segment and teenage users. After all, TikTok is most popular in markets such as India and China, where cheaper devices are the best-sellers.
It’s unclear at this stage if ByteDance will try to tackle the European and US markets, but if it does so the device could be met with a lukewarm reception just like Amazon and Facebook’s offerings from years ago. After all, why bother buying a TikTok smartphone when you can simply download the app on any other phone?