After Acquiring Patents, TikTok Owner ByteDance Launches Its First Smartphone

12/11/2019

TikTok is one of the most popular social media app based in China, which users mostly come from younger generations.

After TikTok owner ByteDance acquired numerous patents and employees from Smartisan, a Chinese phone company, rumors about whether ByteDance wanted to develop its own phone started to circulate.

And this is apparently true, as ByteDance revealed what it calls the 'Smartisan Juanguo Pro 3' (‘Jianguo’ translates to ‘nut’ in Mandarin).

Initially, the phone is available only to people in China, with specifications that include:

  • 6.39" screen with full HD+ AMOLED 1080 x 2340 pixels display, U-shape notch.
  • Qualcomm Snapdragon 855+ processor, Adreno 640 GPU.
  • 8/12GB RAM and 128/256GB of storage (expansion up to 256GB).
  • 48-megapixel primary sensor from Sony + 13-megapixel wide-angle + 8-megapixel telephoto + 5-megapixel macro lens for the rear cameras.
  • 20-megapixel for the front-facing camera.
  • Under-display optical fingerprint scanner.
  • 4,000 mAh battery.
  • Smartisan OS 7.
Smartisan Juanguo Pro 3
The three colors of Smartisan Juanguo Pro 3. (Credit: Pandaily)

The phone has a design that mimics Apple’s old iPhone 5S, while still maintaining the company’s own take on design aesthetics. Featured in white, black and pine green, the phone is encased in a solid glass cover with a rectangular camera module on the top left hand corner to house its quadruple cameras setup.

With its flagship specifications comparable to other high-end phones in the market, Juanguo Pro 3 has a slim profile of just 7.8 millimeters.

But what makes it totally different, is the shortcut to TikTok.

Users of the phone can directly open TikTok’s Chinese version, DouYin, by just swiping up from the lock screen.

This is something that other phone markers have done to appeal certain market. For example, back in 2010, Microsoft unveiled Kin, with a home screen acting as an aggreggator of Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, and Windows Live. In 2013, HTC First had a layer of Facebook’s own software on top of Android.

The phone, according to a sub-division of Chinese financial news outlet Caijing, had been in development for seven months. The effort is being led by Wu Dezhou, a former executive at Smartisan, the outlet added.

What should be noted here is that, despite ByteDance’s acquisition, the company kept the designs of Smartisan and its printed logo of the phone.

Smartisan Juanguo Pro 3 launch
Smartisan Juanguo Pro 3 launch. (Credit: Prabidhi Info)

Smartisan’s founder Luo Yonghao once claimed that his smartphones are the best in the world. But that statement didn't last long as Smartisan started struggling.

In 2018, or just about six years being founded, Smartisan was planning to lay off as many as 40% of its employees. Later, the company was sued by a subsidiary of tablet maker Coolpad, saying that Smartisan owed the company $650,000 for components.

Things also didn't go well in sales. For example, the 1TB-storage R1 and the TNT workstation which were led by Luo Yonghao, didn't sell well in the market. Smartisan expected to sell 3.3 million of those devices in 2018, but failed the target.

Smartisan's other venture, Bullet Messaging, has also fallen in popularity. The so-called alternative to WeChat topped China’s iOS App Store chart for nine days after it launched, before plummeting significantly.

This was when ByteDance stepped in. Following a deal it made with device maker, ByteDance started developing its own phone.

The plans come as the tech firm expands into new sectors beyond video and news apps.

In a statement, a ByteDance spokeswoman said a smartphone had been part of Smartisan’s development plans before the deal it made with ByteDance.

“The product was a continuation of earlier Smartisan plans, aiming to satisfy the needs of the old Smartisan user base,” the spokeswoman added.

The Smartisan Juanguo Pro 3, is on sale for ¥2,899 or $412.