A few years before the birth of TikTok, Kuaishou launched Kwai: a social network that has exactly the same characteristics as that owned by ByteDance. After being largely overtaken in China, Kwai put on another big market : Brasil.
The rise of Kwai in Brazil
Kuaishou launched Kwai in 2013, three years before TikTok. Quickly overtaken in the Chinese market, the company is looking to expand into new emerging markets and it pays off: since February 2021 and Kuaishou’s IPO, the company’s shares have more than doubled. A historic performance. Unlike the majority of social networks, Kuaishou hunts a different kind of content creators and users who rather belong “to the working class”, with low incomes. The social network is particularly interested in Latin America. Kwai settled in São Paulo in 2019.
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On the continent, many creators are seduced by the power of Kwai. This is particularly the case of Yasmin Moreira. She first started posting videos on TikTok. In two years, she has built up a community of 70,000 subscribers on the application. She quickly moved to Kwai where she managed to garner an audience of 120,000 in just a few weeks. The strategy of this influencer is the perfect example to illustrate a movement that experts are increasingly observing in Latin America and especially in Brazil.
Kuaishou does not seek to attract the same users as TikTok
Very quickly, Yasmin Moreira managed to average one million views on each of her videos on Kwai. Moreira is among the growing number of Brazilian creators and users migrating to Kwai. The platform became the third most downloaded app in the country last year, with more than 45 million monthly active users. The secret to the success of the social network is to target users at ” low income “, often neglected by other social networks. Like TikTok, what appeals to Kwai is the main feed with a selection of short videos recommended and personalized thanks to Kuaishou’s algorithms.
Users can follow their favorite creators, watch their videos and interact with them when they host livestreams. In a rare fall 2021 interview, Kuaishou founder Su Hua said his company had always rejected an expansion strategy that prioritized North American users, in part because of TikTok’s dominance. in the USA. Kwai preferred to turn to Indonesia and Brazil. The social network still has a billion users across all of its markets.
Analysts confirm that Kwai’s success in Brazil is partly down to demographics. They specify that “Kwai is used by people who work mostly in blue-collar jobs: labourers, delivery men, bus drivers…”. While TikTok focuses on younger audiences, especially teenagers, primarily in the affluent Southeast regions of Brazil, Kwai caters to audiences from historically marginalized Northeastern states.