Photo/Shetuwang

Apr. 29 (NBD) -- ByteDance, the Chinese company behind the immensely popular video app TikTok, sued Baidu with a local court in Beijing on Friday, accusing the search giant of stealing a massive amount of short video contents from TikTok. 

The lawsuit came around five hours after ByteDance's news aggregation platform Jinri Toutiao was brought to court by Baidu for allegedly stealing the latter's search results. 

In the indictment, ByteDance demanded the exact same amount of 90 million yuan (13.4 million U.S. dollars) for compensation as well as a 30-day apology, the exact same way previously requested by the leading Chinese search engine. 

Behind the tit-for-tat lawsuits is the fierce competition for the huge user traffic, one Internet industry analyst said to National Business Daily (NBD). 

Introducing search service on Jinri Toutiao in March, ByteDance is ramping up its efforts to creep into the Chinese search market, a sector dominated by Baidu. 

The push into the Baidu territory began nearly two years ago. A person close to TikTok parent previously told Chinese tech blog 36kr that a former head of 360 Security Technology Inc's search product joined ByteDance in late 2017 to lead the search business. 

Baidu, in fact, is not the only "enemy" that ByteDance gets in the process of expansion. 

Following the acquisition of Shanghai Mokun, a mobile game developer previously owned by listed gaming company 37 Interactive Entertainment (Shanghai) Technology Co Ltd, ByteDance invested in Shanghe Internet Technology (Shanghai), obtaining a 45.19 percent stake in the game studio.

Its aggressive foray into the gaming industry is expected to further escalate its long-running feud with Tencent. 

"In the medium and long term, Tencent and Baidu might join forces to fight against ByteDance," new economy observer Wang Guanxiong told NBD.  

But to ByteDance, one Internet industry source said, "the priority is to achieve the goal of 100 billion yuan in revenue and launch a successful IPO based on a high market valuation."  

Email: lansuying@nbd.com.cn