Image credit: Solen Feyissa

Triller’s short video app is a direct competitor to TikTok but a huge, outstanding bill may hurt their progress.

It was less than four years ago that Triller took the number one spot on app stores around the world. Coming at roughly the same time as India had banned TikTok and the US was threatening the same, Triller looked to have the potential to knock TikTok off the top spot.

Since then, Triller has maintained popularity but TikTok has remained at the top of its game in most parts of the world. Now, it looks as though Trillers destiny may not even be to steadily trail behind as a TikTok competitor.

A new regulatory filing reveals huge net losses for the company and a massive bill outstanding for music licensing. Much like TikTok, Triller’s short videos are often combined with music. However, Triller haven’t been keeping up with their housekeeping and face a $23.6 million bill in “outstanding music licensing related payment obligations”. This follows reports that Universal Music had filed an infringement suit against Triller in early 2023.

They write: “We are not in compliance with the payment obligations of a significant number of our contracts with certain of our counterparties, including with respect to our music licenses, as a result of our inability to make certain fee payments required pursuant to such agreements or our failure to make such payments on time.”

In their filing, Triller report that they “have incurred net losses in each year since our inception”. They state they are “currently working with our partners and counterparties and/or negotiating the terms of these various agreements”.

The company reportedly purged over 200 million accounts from their platform recently. It was the necessary removal of bot accounts. However, this significantly impacts their overall monthly user-count which has been brought into question before.

This is particularly damaging to the company which hopes to launch an IPO. They’re planning a listing on the New York Stock Exchange in 2024.

For a far more detailed breakdown of Triller’s monetary issues and legal battles, Music Business Worldwide offer an in-depth report on Triller’s current state and their recent history here.