ByteDance appoints first monetisation head for India as music service rumours spread
ByteDance, owner of mobile apps such as video platform TikTok, has appointed its first monetisation head in India, naming Sameer Singh as vice president, monetisation in India.
ByteDance appoints first monetisation head in india
Singh will be joining the Chinese business in August, leaving his role as chief executive officer of South Asia at GroupM.
According to ByteDance, his role will be to lead the sales, marketing and advertising strategies across India, as well as working with ByteDance partners and clients.
Singh, said: “I am truly excited to join ByteDance, which is one of the fastest growing global technology companies spearheading innovation in the mobile space. In India, ByteDance has transformed the way people create and interact with their content, and I believe that my experience will contribute to ByteDance’s promising journey in this market. I am looking forward to working with my colleagues, our clients, and our partners at ByteDance to create new synergies in the industry.”
Singh has a varied background, having joined GroupM from Google, where he was the director of the agencies business. Prior to that, he’s also held client-side media roles at GSK and Proctor and Gamble, working across markets including India, China, USA, UK and West Asia.
Lidong Zhang, Senior Vice President, ByteDance said, “We are excited to welcome Sameer to the team. We are looking forward to working with him to bring ByteDance’s monetization efforts in India across our various platforms such as TikTok and Helo to even greater heights.”
The announcement comes as rumours have mounted around a ByteDance music platform that will challenge the likes of Spotify and Apple. According to Bloomberg, the company is working on a paid music service and while it won’t be called TikTok, the plan is to funnel some of TikTok’s scale into a paid-for service. Bloomberg says the business is yet to ink a deal with major labels, something which can be troublesome for paid-for music streaming services.