What? TikTok to launch its own smartphone?

ByteDance, who owns more than just TikTok, has ambitious plans to launch their own smartphone in a new move to lure customers over its competitors. As reported by The Financial Times, via Mashable, two people familiar with the project have confirmed that the social media company will be soon launching its own smartphone.

The report also states that apart from TikTok, the company is also planning to start its own audio streaming service to compete against the likes of those from Apple, Google. Spotify and Amazon, apart from a new messaging app called Flipchat.

The report states that, ‘ByteDance’s latest project, the brainchild of founder Zhang Yiming, follows its acquisition of a number of patents from Smartisan, a Chinese phonemaker, and subsequent recruitment of some of its staff.’

The phone is said to come with the apps pre-installed on it.

For now, it is unsure if the project will see daylight for sure, but if it does, ByteDance should note what happened to similar projects from Amazon and Snapchat.