Tiktok Saw Its Earnings Double in 2020
Step Down By CEO of Bytedance Has Marked The Biggest Shake-Up At Tech Giant Chinese Firm Since Its Launch Around A Decade Ago
The Chinese entertainment firm ByteDance, which is the parent company of the smash-hit video sharing application TikTok had observed a double in the number of their earnings in the previous year when the entire world was directly affected by the sudden surge of the coronavirus pandemic. An internal memo has been released by the firm to their working staff which has shown that the total revenue of the firm has jumped up by 111% to the estimated value of $34.3 billion in the year 2020.
These figures have underscored the continued popularity of TikTok throughout the globe.
The values have been made public after ByteDance, along with several other Chinese technology companies, has recently been pressurized by the government of multiple developed countries from across the world.
It has also been confirmed that ByteDance has also seen an annual rise of gross profits by 93%, leading the worth to $19 billion, while they have also recorded the amount of net loss, which is around $45 billion in the same time duration. The net loss has been attributed as a one-off adjustment in the accountings and is not in any direct relation with the operations of the company.
The recent company memo has also shown that ByteDance has observed more than 1.9 billion active users over the period of a month across all of their platforms as of December in the previous year.
A spokesperson from ByteDance has confirmed and authorized the validity of the circulating memo to be true.
Pressure of White House
The increasing popularity of the video-sharing application TikTok has led to increased scrutiny of the firm ByteDance by the government from across the globe, which also includes the United States and China.
It has been reported on Thursday that an executive order has been signed by the President of the United States Joe Biden in the initial week of the month of June, to enforce some of the applications developed by Chinese firms to take strict measures for the protection of sensitive information of their users if they want to keep their applications in the US market for long durations.
This order has come after President Joe Biden has revoked a previously signed executive order by his predecessor Donald Trump who has banned the usage of several Chinese applications such as WeChat and TikTok in the United States. Although the ban later faced several legal challenges and was never enforced on the public.
Instead of the ban, the United States Department of Commerce has stated that they would do a thorough review of the applications that have been designed and developed by those firms which are in the jurisdiction of a foreign adversary, which includes China.
President Biden has later given a statement saying that the concerned department is required to use an evidence-based approach to tackle the problem and check if these applications pose any risk to the national security of the United States.
During the time of the previous administration, Donald Trump has made regular attacks on the Chinese firm ByteDance and has accused TikTok of being a major threat to the national security of the United States.
Multiple officials and politicians have raised various concerns about the transfer of personalized data of the users that are located in the United States to the Chinese government.
All allegations have been denied by ByteDance regarding the sharing of user’s data from TikTok by China.
Scrutiny of Beijing
In the month of April, the regulating authorities of China have called upon 12 platforms that are online, which also included the tech giant ByteDance, for adherence to more tight guidelines in their business divisions. This has come as a part of a much larger push in an attempt to rein the technology firms of the country.
The authorities have said that their aim in these regulatory measures strictness is to prevent monopolistic behavior along with capital’s disorderly expansion.
For the past multiple years, Beijing has adopted a hands-off approach for the encouragement of the growth of the technology industry across the nation.
Shake-ups of firms:
In the month of May, ByteDance has publically announced that the CEO and co-founder of the firm, Zhang Yiming, would be stepping down from his position and would transition into a new role in the firm by the end of this year.
In a letter that was forwarded to all of his employees, Mr. Zhang had said that he in the future would be succeeded by his fellow co-founder of ByteDance Rubo Liang.
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