Exclusive: Bytedance to shut down Vigo in India; consolidate with TikTok

The Covid-19 pandemic has thrown businesses into unexpected disaster and consolidation seems to be an inevitable option, at all levels, to preserve resources. This just reflected in India as Bytedance has decided to shut down its short video entertainment app Vigo India.

“We want to thank you for the time you’ve spent with Vigo. It’s you who made us who we are today. We regret to inform you that we’ll discontinue our service after 31st October 2020,” said the app in a notification to its users.

Ahead of discontinuation of its service, Vigo is allowing users to transfer all their videos to TikTok. Users of the app can also transfer their remaining diamonds to TikTok manually.

The merger of two different properties by the world’s largest privately valued company in India has come at a time when businesses have been cutting cost by abandoning cash guzzling verticals, downscaling ops and laying off employees. 

“This is a major sign of prioritising focus and getting rid of distraction. TikTok has grown to become India’s third most popular social network in India and a large chunk of its audience is also on Vigo,” said one of the venture capitalists who invested in a vernacular social media platform. “Bytedance is pulling the plug from Vigo is quite natural.”

Entrackr has sent queries to Bytedance. We will update the story as and when it responds.

TikTok has over 200 million users and more than 600 million downloads from India while Vigo boasts of 120 million active users worldwide with a significant user base from India. It was introduced in 2017 as ‘Hipster’ but later renamed as Vigo. 

At present, Bytedance has three products in India - TikTok, Vigo and Helo. While TikTok and Vigo have witnessed very little competition in India, Twitter-backed ShareChat is an arch-nemesis to Helo in vernacular social network space. On the other hand, Bigo Live and Likee are direct competition to Vigo.

With the shutting down of Vigo, the short video entertainment space will be dominated by TikTok. Previously, several local short video entertainment apps wrapped up ops whereas Matrix-backed Clip consolidated with ShareChat.