Kuaishou

Kuaishou (Chinese: 快手; lit. 'quick hand') is a Chinese video-sharing mobile app developed by Beijing Kuaishou Technology Co., Ltd, with a particularly strong user base among users outside of China's Tier 1 cities.[2] Outside Mainland China, it has also gained considerable popularity in other markets, topping the Google Play and Apple App Store's "Most Downloaded" lists in eight countries. In India, this app is known as Snack Video.[3] It is often referred to as "Kwai" in overseas markets. Its main competitor is Douyin, which is known as TikTok outside of China.[4]

Kuaishou
Native name
快手
TypePublic company
IndustryInternet
FoundedMarch 2011 (2011-03)
FounderSu Hua
Cheng Yixiao
Headquarters
Beijing
,
China
Revenue US$ 7.2 billion (2019)[1]
Websitekuaishou.com

Kuaishou was founded by Su Hua (宿华) and Cheng Yixiao (程一笑).[5] Prior to co-founding Kuaishou, Su Hua had worked for both Google and Baidu as a software engineer.[6] The company is headquartered in Haidian District, Beijing.[7]

Kuaishou is a short video social platform for all users to record and share their lives, with the core mission to "Capture the World, Share Your Story". Kuaishou topped Google Play and Apple App Store’s Most Downloaded lists in eight countries in 2020. The average MAU worldwide reached 776 million in the first half of last year. Active users on our platform spent an average of more than 85 minutes daily on its main app.

History

Kuaishou's predecessor, "GIF Kuaishou", was founded in March 2011. GIF Kuaishou was a mobile app created to make and share GIF pictures. In November 2012, Kuaishou transformed into a short video community, and a platform for users to record and share videos depicting their everyday lives. By 2013, the app had already reached 100 million daily users.[8] By 2019, that figure had surpassed 200 million active daily users.[9]

In March 2017, Kuaishou closed a US$350 million investment round led by Tencent.[8] In January 2018, Forbes estimated the company's valuation to be US$18 billion.[6]

In 2019, the company announced a partnership with the People's Daily, an official newspaper of the Communist Party of China, to help it experiment with artificial intelligence in news.[10]

In March 2020, Kuaishou purchased the online video platform AcFun.

In June 2020, the Government of India banned Kwai along with 58 other apps, citing "data and privacy issues".[11] Recent border tensions between India and China might have also played a role in the ban, as there has been an increasingly political "Boycott China" movement in India due to the competitive relations between the two countries in recent years.

In January 2021, Kuaishou announced it was planning an initial public offering that would seek to raise approximately $5 billion.[12] Kuaishou's stock completed its first day of trading at $300 HKD ($38.70 USD), surpassing its initial offer price by more than double the amount, and causing its market value to skyrocket to over $1 trillion HKD ($159 billion USD).[13][14]

See also

References
  1. "Kuaishou earned revenue of $7.2 billion in 2019: report". technode.com. 11 February 2020. Archived from the original on 8 April 2020. Retrieved 4 May 2020.
  2. Synced (2019-08-12). "Tencent-backed Video App Kuaishou Is Turning Chinese Country Folk Into Hollywood Directors". Synced. Archived from the original on 2019-09-02. Retrieved 2019-09-02.
  3. "Tencent-backed Kwai App ranked Most Popular social short video app". Business Insider. Archived from the original on 2019-09-03. Retrieved 2019-09-03.
  4. "One of China's hottest video apps is flirting with video gaming". South China Morning Post. 2018-12-19. Archived from the original on 2019-09-02. Retrieved 2019-09-02.
  5. Jing, Meng (June 20, 2019). "Is short-video start-up Kuaishou too 'Zen' for China's internet culture? Its founders think so". South China Morning Post. Archived from the original on September 2, 2019. Retrieved September 2, 2019.
  6. "Su Hua". Forbes. Archived from the original on 2019-09-02. Retrieved 2019-09-02.
  7. "Bloomberg Company Profile: Beijing Kuaishou Technology Co Ltd". Bloomberg. Archived from the original on September 2, 2019. Retrieved September 2, 2019.
  8. "Behind the success of Kuaishou, the biggest social video sharing app in China". Technode. May 17, 2017. Archived from the original on September 2, 2019. Retrieved September 2, 2019.
  9. "Is short-video start-up Kuaishou too 'Zen' for China's internet culture?". South China Morning Post. 2019-06-20. Archived from the original on 2019-09-02. Retrieved 2019-09-02.
  10. Li, Jane (September 20, 2019). "China's tech giants are helping the Communist Party's newspaper fine-tune its online voice". Quartz. Archived from the original on September 20, 2019. Retrieved 2019-09-22.
  11. Shrivastava, Rahul (June 29, 2020). "Govt bans 59 Chinese apps including TikTok as border tensions simmer in Ladakh". India Today. Retrieved 2020-06-29.
  12. Chiu, Joanne (25 January 2021). "China's Love of TikTok-Style Apps Powers $5 Billion IPO". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 27 January 2021.
  13. "Kuaishou shares jump 161 per cent in debut as Hong Kong's hottest IPO paves way for offerings from rival video-sharing app owners". South China Morning Post. 5 Feb 2021.
  14. Chiu, Joanne (5 February 2021). "TikTok Rival's Stock More Than Doubles in Hong Kong Debut". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 7 February 2021.
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