TikTok's Chinese owner boosts annual profits to a record $25 billion, report says
Reuters
- ByteDance posted a profit of $25 billion last year, the Financial Times reported.
- The TikTok owner increased its bottom line by almost 80% compared with 2021's $14 billion result.
- It was valued at $300 billion in 2022, making it the world's most valuable privately owned company.
Profits at ByteDance, the Chinese owner of video-sharing site TikTok, soared almost 80% last year to $25 billion, the Financial Times reported.
Revenues jumped more than 30% to about $85 billion as advertisers increased their spending on TikTok and its Chinese equivalent called Douyin. Only about $15 billion was generated outside China, although that was more than double the figure for 2021, per the newspaper.
The figures came from two unnamed investors familiar with the results, according to the FT.
ByteDance was valued at $300 billion last year, making it the world's most valuable privately-owned company.
Despite soaring profits, founder Zhang Yiming's fortune fell by $13 billion to $42 billion after TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew testified before Congress last month and revealed the founders had a smaller stake than previously estimated.
Chew said that Yiming and Liang Rubo, the chief executive of ByteDance, own around 20% of the company. Yiming ran ByteDance from its foundation in 2012 until 2021, when Rubo succeeded him as CEO.
Chew testified in an attempt to ease concerns that ByteDance was sharing data about US users with the Chinese government.
ByteDance has been threatened with a US TikTok ban by the Biden administration if it doesn't sell the app. More than 12 other countries have partially or totally banned TikTok over similar security concerns.
An executive coach, who was a former advisor to President Obama and Disney, was hired by TikTok to work with Chew for more than a month before his hearing.
Some in ByteDance do not seem to concerned about the prospect of a US ban, however.
Erich Anderson, one of its lawyers heading up discussions with the US government, was asked about contingency plans if the app did get banned in the US, The Verge's Command Line newsletter reported Thursday.
Anderson responded to the question with laughter and "outright dismissed the possibility of a ban," according to the report.
ByteDance did not respond to a request for comment from the Financial Times and didn't immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.