Many see this announcement as an extension of an earlier deal meant to explore new avenues in the education business. In fact, ByteDance had acquired some patents from Chinese electronic devise manufacturing company Smartisan in January 2019. They had also hired some Smartisan employees at that time.
Though Google’s Pixel phones have been a success, many other companies have failed to find a niche for their smartphones. Social media giants like Facebook and Snapchat also started smartphone manufacturing in the past but could not do well. They had to shut down their manufacturing units after a point. Though many TikTok users are excited, experts are not too sure if ByteDance will be able to make many profits from their new venture.
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Irrespective of when and how we will see a TikTok smartphone, one thing seems sure. Tiktok fever among the younger generation is not coming down anytime soon. Although ByteDance owns several news and video-related apps like Helo and Toutiau, TikTok has been its biggest hit so far. TikTok has around 500 million regular users and a billion installs. This makes it the fastest-growing social-media app. After its huge success, TikTok has recently unseated Uber to become the world’s largest privately-owned start-up with a valuation of $75 Billion.