According to media reports, the Chinese parent company of the popular short video app TikTok ended the past year with a revenue jump. The income of the Bytedance group will have increased by more than 30 percent in 2022 to more than 80 billion dollars (about 74 billion euros), the financial service Bloomberg reported on Monday.
Bytedance is not listed on the stock exchange and does not have to publish company figures. Exactly how much TikTok contributed to the group sales remained unclear. It will probably remain a small part, while the majority of sales are generated in the home market.
Bytedance operates the separate Chinese TikTok variant Douyin there. The news portal “The Information” pointed out that in November, TikTok forecast ad revenue of about $10 billion for the year, two and a half times what it will be in 2021. TikTok has more than a billion users worldwide.
Allegations of espionage in the United States
The short video platform is under pressure in the West after warnings that Chinese authorities are spying on users. TikTok dismisses the suspicions and inspires confidence with data storage plans in the US and Europe, as well as independent oversight. In the US – where TikTok has more than 150 million users – the model does not seem to make it. There is increasing discussion about a ban on the app. According to media reports, US authorities are demanding that Chinese shareholders withdraw.
TikTok emphasizes that it does not see itself as a subsidiary of a Chinese group, as Bytedance is 60 percent owned by Western investors and the company’s official headquarters are in the Cayman Islands in the Caribbean. Critics object that the Chinese founders had 20 percent of the control thanks to higher voting rights and that Bytedance has a large headquarters in Beijing.
Source: Krone
I’m Ben Stock, a journalist and author at Today Times Live. I specialize in economic news and have been working in the news industry for over five years. My experience spans from local journalism to international business reporting. In my career I’ve had the opportunity to interview some of the world’s leading economists and financial experts, giving me an insight into global trends that is unique among journalists.
