Jinri Toutiao, a leading news aggregator app, has trained sights on the BRICS economies to extend its artificial intelligence-backed business as more people embrace mobile gadgets to receive information and consume content, a company executive said.

Russia is probably the next destination for Toutiao to branch out overseas, after it reaped initial successes in India and Brazil, said Liu Zhen, senior vice-president of its parent company Beijing Bytedance Technology Co Ltd.

"We are set to benefit from the ongoing wave of smartphone penetration and growth of the internet infrastructure in these countries," Liu said. "We can expand via acquisitions or by building up our own products."