Douyin, which means "vibrating sound" in Chinese, was launched in China in September 2016. The app quickly gained popularity among Chinese youth, who were drawn to its short-form, bite-sized videos and creative editing features.
In 2017, ByteDance acquired musical.ly, a popular short-form video-sharing app, for around $1 billion. Musical.ly was founded in 2014 by Alex Zhu and Luyu Yang, and it had gained a significant following among teenagers in the United States and Europe.