BEIJING, April 20 (TMTPOST)— TikTok’s parent ByteDance seems to tap into a multi-billion-dollar industry in its homeland, the world’s largest auto market.

Source: Visual China

ByteDance has already launched a used vehicle project with preparations for a long time, and the project name was most likely to be Dongdong Haoche, in order to distinguish it with Dongchedi, its car information and review app, TMTPost learned from people close to the company.

TMTPost also found ByteDace had inextricable links with the used car industry these years. Chongqing Wanxiang Youche Technology Ltd., a startup engaged in sales of new vehicles and used-vehicles and other auto businesses founded in last April, has the same legal representative with Dongchedi, and its ultimate beneficial owner is Zhang Yiming, ByteDance’s co-founder who step down as CEO in last May, according to Qichacha, a platform that provides data and analytics of China-based private and public companies. Last October, ByteDance increased stakes through one of its affiliates to make Yuechi Qianlu Youche Automobile Sales Service Co., Ltd. a wholly owned subsidiary, which operates businesses including distribution and sales of used cars and has a legal representative who used to have the same role in Beijing Guagua Long Technology Co., Ltd., a ByteDance-backed app for K12 tutoring.  

There were a total of 17.58 million used vehicles sold in 2021, accounting for nearly 70% of the annual retail sales in China’s auto market. As one of a few sectors that maintain rapid growth in Covid-19 pandemic in the country, the used car market had a 22.62% year-over-year (YoY) sales increase, up 17.84% from the pre-pandemic level in 2019, according to the China Automobile Dealers Association. Last month saw 1.32 million used cars traded nationwide with the sales of RMB91.13 billion (US$14.24 billion), down 15.99% YoY by transaction volume, and the volume is expected to have another more than 10% YoY decline in April as Covid bites, the association said. In February, Luo Lei, deputy secretary-general of the association, forecasted the used car transaction of the country this year would exceed 19 million, even could hit 20 million, citing Beijing’s favorable policies for the market as a promising new “blue ocean” for car consumption.