TikTok owners are getting into the messaging game

As TikTok continues to dominate the app download charts, its parent company ByteDance is looking to expand its reach even further.

ByteDance launched a new messaging-focused app on Monday, TechCrunch reports., Feiliao (飞聊), or Flipchat in English, is a messenger app that encourages users to create and join chat groups based on common interests.

ByteDance has already forayed into the messaging space, with a video chat app called Duoshan that was launched in January. But TikTok is the crown jewel of the ByteDance portfolio; It recently entered its fifth quarter as the most downloaded app in the App Store, according to a new Sensor Tower report.,

Flipchat is currently a Chinese app that is set to compete with WeChat, the messaging app that dominates in China. However, its arrival may be cause for concern for one American company: Facebook.

As Facebook showed at its F8 developer conference, Facebook has staked its chips on private messaging as the future of the company, big time. It is consolidating infrastructure between its different DMing platforms – Messenger, Instagram DM and WhatsApp – and is betting on private communication as the future for its users.

With the popularity and innovation of TikTok rising, the new messaging and privacy-oriented Facebook may want to keep Flipchat in its rear view mirror.