China’s ByteDance, owner of short video app TikTok, has accelerated its move into e-commerce with the launch of shopping app “Fanno” in select European markets, reports the South China Morning Post. The move shows that the world’s most valuable tech start-up has its eyes set on diversification into strategic industries.
The Fanno app was made available last month on both Apple’s App Store and Google Play for the Android platform in France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Britain. It was released days before the annual Black Friday event on November 26, which marked the start of the Christmas shopping season in the US and other Western markets.
“We’re at an early phase of exploring this new e-commerce proposition, aiming to provide cost-effective products to global users,” a ByteDance representative said.
Fanno has slowly climbed up the ranks of the world’s most popular apps. It had an average rank of 240th among the most downloaded iOS apps on Saturday, across the five markets where it is available, according to market research firm App Annie. It also indicated that Fanno performed best in Britain and Italy, where the ByteDance product was ranked No 144 and 185, respectively, in the same period.
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