Can Kwai and Bigo Live replace a banned TikTok?

With the TikTok ban potentially taking effect in Q1 2025, marketers are on the lookout for alternatives if the company's legal efforts against the ban fail. 

While many will turn to the usual suspects – YouTube Shorts and Instagram Reels – there are other opportunities from video streaming apps less popular in the US to take TikTok’s place.  

Kwai goes south 

Until 2020, it looked like fellow Chinese app developer Kuaishou Technology and their global video app Kwai, with the company’s one billion monthly active users (vs. TikTok’s 1.2 billion monthly active users at the time) could challenge TikTok. But then Kuaishou Technology shut the company’s North America-focused app Zynn to focus on Latin America. 

In Latin America (particularly Brazil), Kwai’s success has come from focusing on broader demographics than young/teens initially targeted by TikTok, including blue-collar workers. 

Kwai's initial primary source of revenue was the company’s tipping service (live-streaming service) which enabled users to gift virtual items to their favorite streamers.  But in the last few years, marketing has become the leading source of revenue, accounting for 55.9% of revenue vs. 30.9% for live streaming (tipping) in fiscal year 2023.  

Today, according to data from Semrush, Kwai has 129.24 million users in Brazil vs. TikTok’s 135.93 million users. 

Bigo Live invests in AI, AR, and VR technology

Another Chinese live-streaming app that has achieved global success is Bigo Live. The app, initially known as Bigo Technology, was founded in Singapore in 2016 and was acquired by NASDAQ-listed JOYY Inc. in March 2019. 

Bigo Live had 400 million global users in more than 150 countries in 2021.

According to data published by Statista, Bigo Live grew to 1.67 million paying users in Q4 2023, up from 1.55 million paying users in Q4 2022. Data from analytics provider SimilarWeb shows that Bigo Live’s leading marketers are the United States, Indonesia, Turkey, Brazil, and Vietnam. 

In recent years, Bigo Live has focused on advancing the company’s live-streaming AI, VR and AR technology, which will serve as building blocks for the potential metaverse future.

Currently, the app enables users to produce AI-generated content, including animated and lifelike virtual characters and landscapes. And streamers/broadcasters can take advantage of the app’s ‘Virtual Live’ offering to design their own avatars according to their preferences. These virtual avatars can interact authentically with viewers, all powered by Bigo Live’s technology. 

Game on, TikTok

Both Kwai and Bigo Live's current user base is significantly smaller than TikTok’s, and neither is experiencing the growth they enjoyed in the early 2020s. That said, either could potentially challenge TikTok. 

Copying their initially successful Brazilian launch strategy by targeting working-class Americans, and even partnering with some of the members of Congress leading the campaign to ban TikTok would enable Kwai to make an impact in the US market.  Add a commitment to store US user data in the US and sign up a few leading TikTok influencers, and the momentum may shift. 

By finding the right partners, including video programs ready from leading global broadcast networks, Bigo Live can take advantage of the company’s advanced technology to challenge TikTok, particularly if they can find ways to add value and increase sales for sellers currently working with TikTok Shop. 

Given the challenge that Google (YouTube) and Meta (Instagram) have experienced from TikTok, I’d expect these platforms to support anyone challenging TikTok, including Kwai or Bigo Live. The investors who have expressed an interest in buying TikTok’s US operations would probably support or even invest in a challenger showing strength if it becomes clear that TikTok is unwilling to sell its US operations. 

This article was written by Omri Argaman, CMO and CGO, Zoomd.

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