TikTok makes ByteDance rejoice and prepares for war with Instagram
In 2023, the profits of ByteDance, the company that owns TikTok, grew by as much as 60% and the app is preparing to better rival Instagram. The US could ban TikTok, but it has won the hearts of Americans
Despite the fact that it may soon be banned in the USA, where China now has more enemies than friends, TikTok not only does not give in but actually relaunches with a challenge to its most influential rival: Instagram.
Novelty
As the BBC reports, the company has just announced that it is working on a "space dedicated" to images and texts. And already some users have been reached by notifications warning them that their photos will be shared in "TikTok Notes".
This is the latest example of social media imitating and copying each other, as Instagram did when it launched Reels in 2020.
This, explains Mike Proulx, research director at Forrester to the BBC, "is a creeping but widespread phenomenon among social platforms". And it pays off, as Instagram demonstrated when it copied the now very popular "stories" from Snapchat.
But it is Proulx himself who warns that the outcome is not a foregone conclusion, as demonstrated by the failure of the experiments attempted by Twitter.
Record results
ByteDance 's new move comes at a particularly happy time: profits in 2023 grew by as much as 60%, with a performance well above that of other digital giants such as Tencent and Alibaba.
Profits in one year went from 25 to 40 billion dollars, as Bloomberg reports, citing company sources. Sales are also record-breaking, having gone from 80 to 120 billion.
Results which according to Bloomberg indicate that TikTok "has become one of the fastest growing tech giants in 2023".
The conquest of the American market was fundamental, where the platform boasts 170 million active users.
America: driving force or Achilles' heel?
But it is precisely in the States that TikTok's problems begin, whose growth objectives in America must deal with the law approved in March by the House of Representatives but not yet by the Senate which, if it comes into force, will put ByteDance faced with an either/or: sell your assets or be banned in the US.
And just as this ax looms, rumors of a landing on the stock market are multiplying, where a company valued at 400 billion dollars would be tempting to many.
Very pop social
Despite the uncertain navigation and strong political risks, one thing is for sure: TikTok has won the hearts of Americans.
According to data collected by the Pew Research Center , one-third of American adults use it, including a majority of citizens under 30. But the platform is also popular in the 30-49 age group (39%) and in the 50-64 age group (24%).
A Pew survey conducted last year also found that TikTok was the fastest growing platform in terms of new user acquisition.
Everyone is crazy about TikTok
But it is among the young and very young that TikTok really goes crazy. In the 13-17 age group, 63% use it, and the majority (58%) use it daily.
A curiosity: the platform is more appreciated by girls than by male peers (constant use 22% versus 12%), while from an ethnic point of view, Hispanics are the most addicted to drugs (32% constant use) compared to 20% of African-American boys and 10% of white ones.
Who wants to kill TikTok
And since America is the country of a thousand contradictions, so – again according to Pew data – 38% of Americans want the platform to be banned, against 27% who would oppose it.
But in 2023, Americans who wanted to close TikTok were as high as 50%.
TikTok has more enemies among Republican Party voters than Democrats: 50% of the former want it banned versus 29% of the latter.
Of course, only 18% of American minors support the ban. Minors don't vote, but parents do.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/innovazione/tiktok-risultati-economici-bytedance/ on Sun, 14 Apr 2024 05:53:43 +0000.