TikTok-owner ByteDance appears intent on expanding the range of online services and products it provides with its application to register aNOTHER payments-related trademark.
On 22 February ByteDance applied to register the trademarks “BYTEPAY” and the “字节付” (Zijie Fu) under the international category of “advertising sales and financial property management,” according to information made available by Qichacha.
This is not the first time that ByteDance has sought to register trademarks in relation to the terms, submitting related applications 2018 and 2019.
ByteDance has also previously applied to register the terms “Doupay,” “Douyin Zhifu” (抖音支付), “Duoshan Zhufu” (多闪支付), “Duoshanfu” (多闪付) and “Duoshan Qianbao” (多闪钱包).
The company is already making use of these trademarks, with the addition of an online payments function to Douyin – the Chinese counterpart to TikTok – in late January, following the acquisition of a Chinese payments license by ByteDance CEO Zhang Yiming in September 2020.
A Douyin executive said to domestic media that Douyin Pay (抖音支付) is currently serving as a supplement to several other main payments methods, and will help to better serve Douyin’s customer base.
Analysts say that the application for a “Bytepay” trademark could mean that the payments services for ByteDance’s Toutiao news platform and other products could adopt a branding different from Douyin for payments purpose.
In a recent interview with China Banking News Matthew Brennan, author of Attention Factory: The Story of TikTok and China’s ByteDance, said that ByteDance can be expected to use TikTok and ByteDance as the springboards for expansion into a broader range of products and services.
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