TikTok parent ByteDance 'clocks up €2.7bn in profit' on lip-synch craze

TikTok’s parent ByteDance generated more than $3bn (€2.7bn) of net profit on over $17bn in revenue last year, figures that show the world’s most valuable startup is still growing at a brisk rate. 

According to sources, the revenue for last year was more than double the company’s tally of about $7.4bn in 2018, propelled by the phenomenal growth in user traffic that’s drawn advertisers away from Tencent and Baidu. 

ByteDance has emerged as one of the tech industry’s most surprising success stories, an innovative Chinese company that is challenging the global dominance of US internet giants. It draws some 1.5 billion monthly active users to a family of apps that includes the TikTok short-video platform, its Chinese twin Douyin and the news service Toutiao. 

This month, the company poached Walt Disney streaming czar Kevin Mayer to become chief executive officer of TikTok.

The company owes much of its success to TikTok, now the online repository of choice for lip-synching and dance videos by teens. 

The ambitious company is also pushing aggressively into a plethora of new arenas from gaming and search to music. ByteDance could fetch a valuation of between $150bn and $180bn in an initial shares sale.

Bloomberg