Is it very unlikely that the United States will completely ban TikTok?
A ByteDance investor in the US said a TikTok ban would not gut the company’s financials based on current earnings. “TikTok is not as material a percentage of ByteDance’s total revenue as people assume. But the ban would be a real loss to future potential given its growth rate,” the investor said.
ByteDance’s international business, which includes TikTok, recorded about $15bn in sales for 2022, more than double from a year earlier. China revenues came in at about $70bn, another investor said.
ByteDance does not disclose its revenues and profitability figures and did not respond to a request for comment. Founded in 2012 by entrepreneur Zhang Yiming, it was valued at about $300bn last summer when it conducted a share buyback from its employees.
Investors in the company appear to have shrugged off the threat of an imminent US TikTok ban or forced divestiture, which legal experts said would be challenging to implement and was likely to get bogged down in courts.
“There is a lot of value in the company. We view an outright ban as extremely unlikely,” said one executive at a fund that backed the Chinese tech group.
The US-based tech investor said there was no clarity about the IPO timeline. “TikTok has to be sorted out first,” they said. “And everyone wants to see the Ant Financial problem resolved before any ByteDance IPO.”
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whqqq : Is the United States too sensitive?
NewPower : Well TikTok is already ban in China since long time ago. Therefore what is the big deal if US is also banning TikTok just like China?
whqqq NewPower: The company to which TikTok belongs has a *Chinese version* of TikTok, which holds a large share in the Chinese market. TikTok itself targets markets outside of China. However, the ban in the United States may not be a big deal for TikTok, as it may also be targeted for other inexplicable reasons.
NewPower whqqq: Then why all the US social medias e.g. Facebook, Twitter, google etc all being banned in China is not a big deal but just banning TikTok in US is a big deal?