Top downloads of "all categories" and "photography and videos" of App Store on June 29.

Amid the competition among live stream platforms including Facebook Live and Twitter's Periscope, Live.ly, the newly released live streaming app from Musical.ly, has achieved outstanding performance and secured the top slot in the APP Store.

But you would have never thought the app was developed by a Shanghai-headquartered Chinese team with only 50 staff members.

Launched in April 2014, Musical.ly garnered a steady increase in downloads in a year. But after April 2015 when some improvements facilitating the share by users were made, downloads began to skyrocket and all the way to shoot to the top of the APP Store's two applications "all categories" and "photography and video" on July 6.

Musical.ly launched its Live.ly on June 17 and the live stream app was ranked the second and the third place in "photography and video" and "all categories" respectively only in nine days

Musical.ly makes it easy and fun to create amazing 15-second videos and impress your friends. Simply select a sound and start lip syncing! Anyone can be an awesome singer with musical.ly!

On June 27, at the TechCrunch Shanghai 2016, the must-attend conference for the technology and Internet industry in China, Luyu Yang, co-founder of Musical.ly said Musical.ly has about 100 million users in Europe and the United States, and more than 10 million daily active users, 50 percent from Europe and 40 percent from the United Stated, but almost no from China.

When asked why Mysical.ly did not put Chinese market in the priority, Luyu Yang said first of all because the team has only more than 10 people and their strength does not match their ambition, and partly because European and American popular culture have featured personality and labels, expanding global market should start from these markets with strong culture. "The reason why we are growing fast in Southeast Asia and South America is greatly related with the fact that we chose the US as the starting point," added Luyu Yang

Musical.ly App.

Different from Facebook and Twitter, users of Musical.ly are between 13 years old and 20 years old. In addition, the current product meets the needs of users who cannot experience on social network sites such as Facebook and Twitter.

Musical.ly received $ 16.6 million financing in August 2015. In May this year, TechCrunch reported that a new round of financing totaling approximately $ 100 million is underway and valuation of Musical.ly in this round of financing is estimated to reach about $ 500 million.