Kuaishou
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Kuaishou Technology ( zh, c=快手, l=quick hand) is a Chinese publicly traded partly state-owned holding company based in Haidian District,
Beijing Beijing, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Peking, is the capital city of China. With more than 22 million residents, it is the world's List of national capitals by population, most populous national capital city as well as ...
, that was founded in 2011 by Hua Su (宿华) and Cheng Yixiao (程一笑). The company, listed on the
Hong Kong Stock Exchange The Stock Exchange of Hong Kong (, SEHK, also known as Hong Kong Stock Exchange) is a stock exchange based in Hong Kong. It is one of the largest stock exchanges in Asia and the List of major stock exchanges, 9th largest globally by market ...
, is known for developing a
mobile app A mobile application or app is a computer program or software application designed to run on a mobile device such as a smartphone, phone, tablet computer, tablet, or smartwatch, watch. Mobile applications often stand in contrast to desktop appli ...
for sharing users' short videos, a
social network A social network is a social structure consisting of a set of social actors (such as individuals or organizations), networks of Dyad (sociology), dyadic ties, and other Social relation, social interactions between actors. The social network per ...
, and video special effects editor. The app is known as Kwai in many countries outside of China. It is also known as Snack Video in India, Pakistan and Indonesia. As of 2019, it has a worldwide user base of over 200million, leading the "Most Downloaded" lists of the
Google Play Google Play, also known as the Google Play Store, Play Store, or sometimes the Android Store (and was formerly Android Market), is a digital distribution service operated and developed by Google. It serves as the official app store for certifie ...
and Apple App Store in eight countries, such as Brazil, where it was introduced in 2019. Its main competitor is Douyin, which is known as
TikTok TikTok, known in mainland China and Hong Kong as Douyin (), is a social media and Short-form content, short-form online video platform owned by Chinese Internet company ByteDance. It hosts user-submitted videos, which may range in duration f ...
outside China. Kuaishou's overseas team is led by the former CEO of the application 99, and staff from Google, Facebook, Netflix, and TikTok were recruited to lead the company's international expansion. The China Internet Investment Fund, a
state-owned enterprise A state-owned enterprise (SOE) is a business entity created or owned by a national or local government, either through an executive order or legislation. SOEs aim to generate profit for the government, prevent private sector monopolies, provide goo ...
controlled by the Cyberspace Administration of China, holds a golden share ownership stake in Kuaishou.


History

Kuaishou is China's first short video platform that was developed in 2011 by engineer Hua Su and Cheng Yixiao. Prior to co-founding Kuaishou, Su Hua had worked for both
Google Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...
and Baidu as a software engineer. The company is headquartered in Haidian District,
Beijing Beijing, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Peking, is the capital city of China. With more than 22 million residents, it is the world's List of national capitals by population, most populous national capital city as well as ...
. Kuaishou's predecessor "GIF Kuaishou" was founded in March 2011. GIF Kuaishou was a mobile app with which users could make and share
GIF The Graphics Interchange Format (GIF; or , ) is a Raster graphics, bitmap Image file formats, image format that was developed by a team at the online services provider CompuServe led by American computer scientist Steve Wilhite and released ...
pictures. In November 2012, Kuaishou became a short video community and a platform with which users could record and share videos. By 2013, the app had reached 100 million daily users. By 2019, it had exceeded 200million active daily users. In March 2017, Kuaishou closed a US$350 million investment round that was led by
Tencent Tencent Holdings Ltd. ( zh, s=腾讯, p=Téngxùn) is a Chinese Multinational corporation, multinational technology Conglomerate (company), conglomerate and holding company headquartered in Shenzhen. It is one of the highest grossing multimed ...
. In January 2018, Forbes estimated the company's valuation to be US$18 billion. In April 2018, Kuaishou's app was briefly banned from Chinese app stores after China Central Television (CCTV) reported on the platform popularizing videos of teenage mothers. In 2019, the company announced a partnership with the ''
People's Daily The ''People's Daily'' ( zh, s=人民日报, p=Rénmín Rìbào) is the official newspaper of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). It provides direct information on the policies and viewpoints of the CCP in multiple lan ...
'', an official newspaper of the
Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party The Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, officially the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, is the Central committee, highest organ when the National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, national congress is not ...
, to help it experiment with the use of
artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is the capability of computer, computational systems to perform tasks typically associated with human intelligence, such as learning, reasoning, problem-solving, perception, and decision-making. It is a field of re ...
in news. In June 2020, following the start of the 2020–2021 China–India skirmishes, the
Government of India The Government of India (ISO 15919, ISO: Bhārata Sarakāra, legally the Union Government or Union of India or the Central Government) is the national authority of the Republic of India, located in South Asia, consisting of States and union t ...
banned Kwai along with 58 other apps, citing "data and privacy issues". In January 2021, Kuaishou announced it was planning an
initial public offering An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investm ...
(IPO) to raise approximately US$5 billion. Kuaishou's stock completed its first day of trading at $300 Hong Kong dollars (HKD) (US$38.70), more than doubling its initial offer price, and causing its market value to rise to over $1 trillion HKD (US$159 billion). In February 2021, Kuaishou made a debut on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, with its shares soaring by 194% at the opening. However, the company soon faced significant challenges due to stringent regulatory restrictions on Chinese internet companies, leading to a nearly 80% decline in its share price from its peak post-IPO. By December 2021, Kuaishou announced a major reorganization, including the layoff of 30% of its staff, primarily targeting mid-level employees earning an annual salary of $157,000 or more. This restructuring aimed to cut costs and mitigate financial losses. In October 2022, state-owned Beijing Radio and Television Station took a minority ownership stake in Kuaishou. In April 2024, a ''
Financial Times The ''Financial Times'' (''FT'') is a British daily newspaper printed in broadsheet and also published digitally that focuses on business and economic Current affairs (news format), current affairs. Based in London, the paper is owned by a Jap ...
'' article citing current and former Kuaishou employees stated that the company has been running an ageist redundancy programme known internally as "Limestone", culling workers in their mid-30s. In June 2024, Kuaishou and the Sichuan international communication center launched a branch center in
São Paulo São Paulo (; ; Portuguese for 'Paul the Apostle, Saint Paul') is the capital of the São Paulo (state), state of São Paulo, as well as the List of cities in Brazil by population, most populous city in Brazil, the List of largest cities in the ...
,
Brazil Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, fifth-largest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population ...
. In June 2024, Kuaishou released its
diffusion Diffusion is the net movement of anything (for example, atoms, ions, molecules, energy) generally from a region of higher concentration to a region of lower concentration. Diffusion is driven by a gradient in Gibbs free energy or chemical p ...
transformer text-to-video model, Kling, which they claimed could generate two minutes of video at 30 frames per second and in
1080p 1080p (1920 × 1080 progressively displayed pixels; also known as Full HD or FHD, and BT.709) is a set of HDTV high-definition video modes characterized by 1,920 pixels displayed across the screen horizontally and 1,080 pixels down the sc ...
resolution. The model has been compared to that of OpenAI's Sora text-to-video model. It is accessible to the public on Kuaishou's video editing app KwaiCut via signing up for a waitlist with a Chinese phone number.


Popularity

Compared to its main short video platform competitor Douyin, Kuaishou is more popular with older users who live outside China's Tier 1 cities. Its initial popularity came from videos of Chinese rural life. Kuaishou also relied more on e-commerce revenue than on advertising revenue compared to its main competitor. The app is one of the most popular social media platforms in
Brazil Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, fifth-largest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population ...
, where Kuaishou partnered with creators to make
telenovela A telenovela is a type of a television serial drama or soap opera produced primarily in Latin America. The word combines ''tele'' (for "television") and ''novela'' (meaning "novel"). Similar Drama (film and television), drama genres around the w ...
style content, and appeals to football fans by working with football teams CR Flamengo and Santos FC and sponsoring the tournament Copa América. Kwai was important in Brazil for spreading information (and
misinformation Misinformation is incorrect or misleading information. Misinformation and disinformation are not interchangeable terms: misinformation can exist with or without specific malicious intent, whereas disinformation is distinct in that the information ...
) about the COVID-19 vaccine and is also a site for political misinformation along with other social media. Kuaishou says it is continuing to develop its overseas markets, especially in Latin America, the UAE and Nigeria. Kwai (as the app is called outside of China) was banned in
India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...
in 2020 along with other short video apps like TikTok. Kuaishou then released the clone SnackVideo, which was subsequently also banned.


See also

* List of Kuaishou original programming * List of content platforms by monthly active users


References


External links

* {{Hang Seng China 50 Index Companies based in Beijing Chinese companies established in 2011 Internet properties established in 2011 Mobile applications Tencent Video software Social networking services Video game streaming services Live streaming services 2021 initial public offerings Companies listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange Internet censorship in India Government-owned companies of China Text-to-video generation HarmonyOS software IOS software Android (operating system) software