According to CNBC, ByteDance, which owns TikTok, saw its revenue more than double last year.
Revenues totaled $34.3 billion, up 111% year-on-year, the company’s senior management told employees at a meeting. Gross profit rose 93% to $19 billion.
ByteDance had 1.9 billion monthly active users at the end of 2020 across all its platforms, which include its popular short video app TikTok, Chinese version Douyin and news aggregation app Toutiao, among others.
The rapid growth underscores the excitement around ByteDance, and why its valuation has been pegged at more than $100 billion.
The company also hired former Xiaomi executive Shou Zi Chew as CFO earlier this year, indicating that it may be preparing for an IPO.
ByteDance’s operating loss in 2020 was $2.1 billion, compared with an operating profit of $684 million the previous year. The loss was mainly due to the cost of stock-based compensation for shareholders, the source said.
The Chinese company has managed to find success internationally with TikTok, the short video app popular for dancing and lip-syncing. Advertising is a key part of ByteDance’s revenue on its platforms, but it has started to move into new areas such as gaming and is going head-to-head with other Chinese tech giants such as Tencent.
The Chinese version of TiKTok, along with 104 other apps, was reported by the Cyberspace Administration of China for illegal collection of personal data and was asked to rectify the problems. This could easily skyrocket (even more) the app’s use, considering that there are approximately 904 million Chinese Internet users who could run out of their version of TikTok.
The company will also undergo a key management change this year. Zhang Yiming, co-founder of ByteDance, will step down as CEO at the end of the year and move into a key strategic role. Another co-founder, Liang Rubo, who is currently head of human resources, will take over as CEO.
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