Beijing (PingWest)—ByteDance, famous for its short video hit app TikTok, has shut down its overseas news aggregator TopBuzz, indicating that despite TikTok's success, the way ByteDance penetrated the international market has not been very smooth.

“We’re proud of the work that we accomplished with TopBuzz, but (we) have determined that other areas of the business should be our priority going forward,” Reuters reported on Friday, citing the statement from ByteDance.

Launched in 2015, TopBuzz recommends personalized news articles to global users with different interests based on its AI-driven algorithms. But it has not gone well in overseas markets. 

According to data from research institute Sensor Tower, TopBuzz's downloads on the App Store and Google Play dropped from 7 million in 2018 to 1.2 million in the first half of 2019.

TopBuzz began shrinking its operations last year. The app used to have operations in multiple languages including Spanish and Portuguese, but now its website only shows English and Japanese versions, Reuters reported, citing sources familiar with the matter.

In September 2019, The Information reported that ByteDance was in talks with potential buyers to sell TopBuzz, including with some US-based media companies, technology titles.

Currently, the app has been pulled from the Apple app store in some major countries except Japan.