TikTok parent ByteDance to shut down music streaming service Resso in India

ByteDance is shutting down its music streaming service Resso in India by the end of this month, reported Moneycontrol, citing sources.

"Unfortunately, owing to local market conditions, we can no longer continue to serve users of Resso in India. We have therefore decided to shut down Resso and its associated operations on January 31. Users will be offered a refund of their remaining subscription fees," a ByteDance spokesperson was quoted as saying by Moneycontrol.

According to the report, the app was taken down from Google Play and the Apple App Store in India in mid-December 2023.

ByteDance, best known for its short video app TikTok, launched Resso in India, Indonesia, and Brazil in March 2020. Through free and premium subscription levels, users could stream music tracks from numerous genres and languages.

Paid subscriptions offered ad-free listening, high-quality music, the ability to download songs for offline listening, unlimited skips, and a variety of social features. The service was available for prices ranging from a weekly plan of Rs 25 per week to monthly plans of Rs 99 per month for individuals or Rs 119 per month for families and annual plans of Rs 749 per year.

In May 2023, Resso discontinued the free tier, becoming a premium-only service. At the time, the company said this move would enable them to develop a better user experience for music fans while expanding options for rights holders and artists.

In recent years, ByteDance, the world's most valuable startup, has had a rocky road in India. In June 2020, the Indian government banned several of its apps, including TikTok, Helo, and CapCut, citing national security concerns in the first round of Chinese app restrictions. Apple and Google removed the apps from their respective mobile app stores in response to this injunction. The ban was made permanent by the government in January 2021.

Resso, on the other hand, has so far survived this ban and has become India's top-grossing mobile app in the music and audio category on the Play Store.

According to the app intelligence firm Sensor Tower, it has been among the top-grossing mobile apps in the country on Google Play in the last year or so. The company also noted that India was the largest market for Resso in terms of downloads and monthly active users. As of May 2023, the app had over 250 million installs since its launch.