TikTok's Singapore competitor Lomotif acquired for $125 million

According to Bloomberg, a group of investors including global media and entertainment company ZASH have announced that they will acquire Singapore-based video sharing platform Lomotif for US$125 million, with ZASH owning 80% of the company.

According to ZASH, Lomotif’s average monthly community size has grown by 400% over the past three years, and the platform has posted and shared more than 740 million videos since it opened in 2014.

ZASH believes that Lomotif is one of the fastest-growing video-sharing platforms in Latin America, Asia, Europe and West Africa , so the acquisition of Lomotif could help it surpass TikTok and Kuaishou short video platforms to become a global top player in the industry.

Jaeson Ma, co-founder of ZASH , also said that Lomotif is a global platform with many followers in Latin America and Asia. In the future , ZASH will work with Lomotif to replicate this successful experience in the United States and other markets .

Short video apps have become wildly popular among teens and millennials, and while TikTok started the trend, many other similar apps have also gained a sizeable share of customers, such as Instagram’s Reels and Dubsmash.

According to a research report published by Grand View Research , the global video market value has reached US$50.1 billion in 2020 , and is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 21% from 2021 to 2028. Another report pointed out that the scale of global online video platforms in the media and entertainment sector was US$218 million in 2016, but it is expected that this market size will reach US$915 million by 2025 .

It is no wonder that so many companies want to enter the online video market through acquisition or investment.

Interestingly, after TikTok was ruthlessly banned by the Indian government, TikTok's parent company ByteDance also planned to establish its Asia-Pacific center in Singapore.

Data analysis company GlobalData pointed out that TikTok is laying off employees in India and will increase its recruitment efforts in Singapore. Data shows that since August 2020, about 25% of the total job postings of TikTok's parent company ByteDance have been located in Singapore.

GlobalData 's business fundamentals analyst expressed his views on this, saying: " ByteDance is planning to make Singapore a hub for the Asia-Pacific region outside of China in an effort to seek a neutral position amid the US-China trade tensions. "

As a result, TikTok and Lomotif are likely to face off in Singapore. In the future, there will be more and more competitors who want to enter the video field, and their financial resources will become stronger and stronger. If TikTok wants to continue to "dominate", it may need to win several "fierce battles".

TikTok

Lomotif