Cover Story: TikTok’s Chinese Twin Is Taking On Alibaba and Meituan for E-Commerce Market Share

ByteDance Ltd.’s Douyin mobile app, the Chinese version of its enormously popular short-video platform TikTok, is challenging rivals Alibaba Group and Meituan Inc. for a slice of the e-commerce and local services business in China.

Having attracted hundreds of millions of users with its video sharing product, Beijing-based ByteDance is pushing to capitalize on that following. Since 2021, the company has pushed TikTok and Douyin to promote online shopping to monetize their user traffic.