TikTok plans to push app into gaming

 TikTok, which is owned by China’s ByteDance, also plans to roll out gaming more widely in Southeast Asia

TikTok has been conducting tests so users can play games on its video-sharing app in Vietnam, part of plans for a major push into gaming, four people familiar with the matter said.

Featuring games on its platform would boost advertising revenue as well as the number of time users spend on the app – one of the world’s most popular with more than 1 billion monthly active users.

Boasting a tech-savvy population with 70 percent of its citizens under the age of 35, Vietnam is an attractive market for social media platforms such as TikTok, Meta Platfor­ms’s Facebook, and Alphabet’s YouTube and Google.

TikTok, which is owned by China’s ByteDance, also plans to roll out gaming more widely in Southeast Asia, the people said.

That move could come as early as the third quarter, said two of them. The sources declined to be identified as the information has yet to be publicly disclosed.

A TikTok representative said the company has tested bringing HTML5 games, a common form of minigame, to its app through tie-ups with third-party game developers and studios such as Zynga. But it declined to comment on its plans for Vietnam or its broader gaming ambitions.

“We’re always looking at ways to enrich our platform and regularly test new features and integrations that bring value to our community,” the representative said.