Parent company of TikTok launches ‘LetsChat’ App for young people in Africa
ByteDance, the Chinese company that owns TikTok, has launched “LetsChat”, a free online messaging application designed for young African users.
The earliest version of the app was launched in March 2021, and data from Google Play Store shows that the number of installations has exceeded one million.
According to a report by Chinese media outlet The Passage, the team behind this App (Zebra Technology) is actually part of a Beijing-based tech firm and TikTok owner, ByteDance.
The report also noted that the App is likely to cater to African teens as the region currently has the world’s most addicted Internet users.
The latest report from a UK-based company Global Web Index (GWI), shows that African users spend more time on social media platforms than their global counterparts. According to the survey, African users spend more than the global average of 2 hours and 26 minutes per day.
Nigerians are among the most daily social media users globally, using social media for an average of 3 hours and 45 minutes a day.
Using data from the report, it is evident that social tool products have strong vitality in Africa and young Africans have great demand for social content applications such as chat and video.
As a result, the success of apps like TikTok in Africa has provided ByteDance with the experience of launching new products in emerging markets with a lot of space to be developed.
LetsChat currently has a rating of 3.8 among 5,900 people in the Google App Store, and the scale of users with 4-5 points is far more than the users with 1 and 3 points. The App has emphasised its own voice stickers and emoji features and features no ads, no pop-up ads, as well as subscription fees.
