ByteDance expected to post 30% growth off the back of TikTok

According to reports, ByteDance, the company behind TikTok and Douyin, has far exceeded the growth of tech rivals in the US and China, as it draws level with the revenues of the gaming and messaging titan Tencent.

Why it matters

It may be under political pressure in the United States, but whatever TikTok is doing, it’s working. While its revenue gains – should they prove accurate – suggest that it can defy a shaky economy, much of its strength lies in the Chinese version of the app, Douyin, which has much more successfully integrated e-commerce and purchase features.

What’s happening

Bloomberg reports on an internal memo which says that the firm grew revenues of $60 billion in 2021 to $80 billion in 2022, underscoring the TikTok boom across the world that has helped it to catch up to Tencent, which was founded roughly 15 years before ByteDance.

In 2022, there were already signals that the company was growing incredibly fast, especially through ad revenues, which in Europe alone grew five-fold between 2020 and 2022.

TikTok’s ad revenues are forecast to grow 51.7% in 2023, according to WARC Media data, with marketers in all categories expecting to increase spend on the popular (and CPM-wise) cost-effective app.

However, the political clouds over the company have darkened recently, with consensus building toward a ban, which agencies and clients have begun preparing for.

Sourced from Bloomberg and WARC