Riding high on TikTok’s controversial yet surging popularity, the app’s parent company Bytedance has reportedly crossed the $100Bn mark in valuation, according to a report from Bloomberg. Citing people close the matter, the report says Bytedance saw an at least 33% jump in its valuation the past few months, taking it beyond the $100Bn mark.
The report further talks about how certain transactions have placed company’s value as high as $140 billion. The trades however, are private transactions and may not fully reflect broader investor expectations.
While it is a signifcant milestone for any company that crosses the $100B valuation mark, this was pretty much incoming in case of Bytedance. A similar report that came up a few months back, suggested that there has been an increased rush in buying a piece of Bytedance. In fact, Tiger Global, which is one of the largest investors in the company, has been on a share buying spree itself, signalling a strong interest in the company from external investors.
What makes this even more significant, is the timing of the milestone. Coronavirus has forced governments globally to lock down nations, resulting in people being forced to stay at home. With businesses shut down and little fresh entertainment available, TikTok in particular has seen a massive surge in both viewership as well as content creation.
Bytedance’s online ecosystem draws a staggering 1.5 billion monthly active users to a family of apps that includes Douyin, TikTok’s Chinese twin, as well as news service Toutiao. Tiktok alone recently crossed over 2 billion in download numbers, across all major app stores. The Chinese version Douyin alone has over 400 million of those 1.5Bn active users.
And as numbers surge, Tiktok has also been hiring in thousands. At a time when even the biggest of tech companies have had to downsize or freeze hiring, Bytedance recently started hiring as many 10,000 new employees to strengthen its global workforce. The company recently brought in former Disney streaming business chairman Kevin Mayer in dual roles of Bytedance COO and TikTok CEO.
However, there have been more than fair share of controversies for TikTok. The app has been frequently flagged as a security concern by various departments within the US government. More recently, users in India, which forms its largest base outside China, went to a downgrading spree for the app due to certain objectionable content making its way into mainstream app. The app has seen its rating come down from a high of 4.5 on Google’s play store to less than 1, in less than 2 weeks of time.
