Bilibili shutters competitor to ByteDance’s TikTok in China

Bilibili, a Chinese video streaming and media firm,  has shuttered Qing Video, its competing offering to ByteDance’s version of TikTok in China, TechNode reported.

Qing, a rival to short-video platform Douyin, is known for its “bullet comments” feature, which allows viewers’ live comments to be displayed on screen. Bilibili’s main YouTube-like app also has its own version of this feature.

However, the company’s daily downloads in China crashed two months after peaking at 9,400 in September 2019.

The development follows Bilibili rolling out support for short vertical videos on its main app, which accounted for 20% of the total amount of plays on the platform in the first quarter of this year. This lent to Qing Video becoming a redundant platform for the company, noted TechNode in its report.

In June, Bilibili said it will axe nearly 20% of its workforce across its streaming, gaming, and commercialization departments. The move was seen as a step by the Nasdaq-listed company to turn profitable by 2024 – a goal announced by CFO Fan Xin in March.

The media firm’s net loss widened by nearly 2.5x to US$329 million in the fourth quarter of 2021 from the year before – a bigger loss than analysts expected.

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