July 26, 2023: TikTok recently established a modern competition to music-streaming giants Spotify and Apple Music, as the popular short video app aims new avenues for growth.

On Wednesday, TikTok Music said it would test its service in Australia, Mexico, and Singapore. That announcement comes shortly after it launched in Indonesia and Brazil earlier this month.

Last week, TikTok revealed an expanded licensing agreement with Warner Music Group as it looks to grow its music content library. Parent company ByteDance also recently dumped the free tier of Resso, another music-streaming service it holds.

While these efforts are in their earlier daytimes, analysts said TikTok has key advantages that other music-streaming entrants do not possess, which could help it seize market share.

“There’s already this large established bottom of users which TikTok can convert into producing TikTok Music subscribers with a relatively low customer purchase price,” said Jonathan Woo, senior research analyst at Phillip Securities Research.

According to DataReportal, Indonesia and Brazil are TikTok’s second-and third-largest needs, behind only the U.S., with 113 million and 84.1 million active TikTok users aged 18 years and above, respectively. Meanwhile, Mexico is TikTok’s fourth-largest market, with 62.4 million TikTok users.

“TikTok Music will make it comfortable for users to save, download and share their favorite viral tracks from TikTok,” Ole Obermann, global head of theme business growth for TikTok, said during the Indonesia and Brazil launch.

TikTok is the second-most common source of music discovery for 16 to 19-year-olds, behind YouTube, according to data from MIDiA Research shared. MiDIA Research is a U.K.-based research firm covering entertainment and media.

In MiDIA’s fourth-quarter consumer survey, 48% of respondents said YouTube is among their main places for understanding music, while 41% pointed to TikTok. The survey fielded 9,000 respondents across the U.S., U.K., Australia, Canada, Germany, France, Sweden, South Korea, and Brazil.

“A lot of times people hear lots of extra songs on TikTok, but they don’t make the leap to listen to it elsewhere or learn more about the artist,” said Tatiana Cirisano, music analyst at MiDIA Research.

“The powerful possibility for TikTok Music is that it could close that gap,” said Cirisano.