Behind the rise of Kuaishou's short-form video app Kwai in Brazil, where it has amassed 45M+ monthly active users by appealing to people with blue collar jobs
Kuaishou is chasing novela creators and working-class users in Latin America to keep up with the competition. Tweets: @alexgonzor , @restofworld , @restofworld , and @decka227 Tweets: @alexgonzor : If you want to know what the future of apps and social media is going to be like, look to Brazil 🇧🇷 It is there that established tech giants like TikTok are facing their toughest competition for your attention yet @decka227 & @mmarasciulo explain how https://restofworld.org/... @restofworld : Creators and analysts say part of Kwai's success in Brazil is its target demographic. “Kwai is used by people who work most of the day in blue collar jobs: app drivers, bus drivers, food delivery,” while rival TikTok goes after younger, wealthier users https://restofworld.org/... @restofworld : Rather than competing with TikTok in the saturated U.S. market, Kuashou's Kwai has looked to Brazil for new users. The company says it now has more than one billion monthly active users around the world https://restofworld.org/... Andrew Deck / @decka227 : Kwai, the international version of Kuaishou, was the third most downloaded app in Brazil last year. @mmarasciulo and I on how the Chinese company developed a strategy of chasing working class users, and is using its success as a gateway to Latin America https://restofworld.org/...
Context & Ripple Effects
Kwai’s Brazilian push extends Kuaishou’s already substantial global reach: the company had reported more than one billion monthly users across its apps before this localized effort. Rather than relying on scale alone, Kuaishou is pairing working-class audience targeting with recruitment of novela creators to build a distinctly Brazilian content supply.
First-order effects
- Kuaishou gains a large Brazilian distribution base for Kwai, while workers such as drivers and delivery personnel become a defined target audience rather than a residual segment.
- Novela creators in Latin America gain a new platform buyer for short-form content as Kwai expands its local programming offering.
Second-order effects
- TikTok faces a more focused competitor for viewing time among Brazilian working-class audiences, raising the value of locally relevant creator acquisition.
- Kwai’s creator recruitment makes local cultural formats a competitive input, not just a marketing layer, in Brazil’s short-video market.
Third-order effects
- If this approach holds, short-video platforms’ position in Latin America will depend less on global user scale alone and more on their ability to build audience-specific local content ecosystems.
- Brazil’s role as a proving ground for Kwai points to a regional market in which Chinese platforms compete through localization as well as app distribution.
The trend: Short-video competition in Latin America is shifting toward localized creator supply and tightly defined audience segments, rather than a one-size-fits-all global feed.