TikTok-rival Triller inks deal with Reliance’s JioSaavn in India push – TechCrunch

Triller, an app that functions similarly to TikTok, has inked a strategic partnership with a platform owned by India’s richest man to cash in on the Chinese app’s ban in its biggest international market.

The Los Angeles-headquartered firm said on Monday it has partnered with Reliance’s JioSaavn music app to embed Triller videos into the streamer “front and center.”

As part of what Triller said was the “first of many announcements to come from these two digital powerhouses,” JioSaavn app will also provide a “prominent” button on its main screen that will enable its users to create a triller video, the American firm said.

The announcement comes as scores of local startups have rushed to fill the void New Delhi’s ban on TikTok and 58 other Chinese apps over cybersecurity concerns created at the end of June this year.

Some of the local firms that are attempting to cash in on TikTok’s absence include on-demand video streaming service Zee5, news aggregator app DailyHunt, and Times Internet’s music streaming service Gaana and video streamer MX Player.

So Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s JioSaavn, one of the largest music streaming services in India, showing user-generated videos doesn’t sound like an absurd idea anymore.

Triller claims JioSaavn has amassed over 300 million users in India. I don’t think so: Its Android app had fewer than 30 million weekly active users earlier this month, according to one of the top mobile insight firms. And a press release from two months ago on JioSaavn’s website says it had over 104 million monthly active users.

But what is more interesting about this partnership is that it exists at all. As of early this month, Reliance Industries, the firm that runs telecom giant Jio Platforms, was in early-discussions with ByteDance to invest in TikTok’s operations in India. (Jio Platforms, which has raised over $20 billion from Facebook and a dozen other investors this year, operates a bouquet of digital services including JioTV, JioCinema, and Haptik.)

At any rate, Rishi Malhotra, co-founder and chief executive of JioSaavn, said the partnership with Triller will enable “artists to create and express our culture in the most innovate ways. We are confident that this partnership will exponentially grow both companies.”

Bobby Sarnevesht, executive chairman of Triller, said he was pleased, too, in a statement.