TikTok (previously known as Douyin in China), launched in September 2016 by ByteDance, is one of the world’s fastest-growing privately owned startups. It allows users to create 15-second videos that are soundtracked by music clips. In 2018, the application was the most downloaded free app throughout the year for App Store (including the US) and was also ranked number one on Google Play Store in October.
The company booked revenue of $7 billion to $8.4 billion in the first half of this year. The revenue is higher than expected according to some sources.
One of the sources also disclosed that the Beijing based startup has revised its 2019 revenue to 120 billion yuan (~$17 billion) rather than the 100-billion yuan (~$14.1 billion) goal set earlier last year thanks to the unexpected growth.
Based on a report from The Information, an online tech news outlet, the company’s revenue was $7.2 billion for 2018.
ByteDance gains most of the revenue from its domestic market. Douyin generates the majority of the advertising fees. TikTok, on the other hand, is still in the early phases of development.
The emerging company, with its robust growth, has been posing a threat to other Chinese companies like Tencent and Baidu. Since globally, ByteDance’s application has 1.5 billion monthly active users and 700 million daily active users on average.
ByteDance also launched a search engine last month, directly threatening Baidu’s search engine. To expand its portfolio in the global market, the company has also launched a work efficiency app called Lark and is working on a paid music streaming application.
