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$50 billion market value, 25,000 employees? This is for a short video sharing app, right? I'm confused both by the apparent market value of the company and the

$50 billion market value, 25,000 employees? This is for a short video sharing app, right? I'm confused both by the apparent market value of the company and the number of employees proposed for the US operations. Seems orders of magnitude off for what the app does, even at the scale that it does.

smt88 6y ago
You mention the number of employees and the complexity of the software. Neither matters for the valuation. Maybe it should, but it's not what the market cares about at this stage of the company. The $50B is for the 100M users MAUs, 50M of which are active daily[1]. They have a billion downloads as well. As a comparison, Facebook paid $1B for 30-40M signups on Instagram2[2][3]. Their MAUs and DAUs at the time would've been a small fraction of that. So if we consider TikTok's downloads to be equivalent to Instagram's signups, the valuation isn't crazy at all (especially since TikTok has revenue). 1. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/24/tiktok-reveals-us-global-user-growth-numbers-for-first-time.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/24/tiktok-reveals-us-global-use... 2. https://www.vox.com/2017/4/9/15235940/facebook-instagram-acquisition-anniversary https://www.vox.com/2017/4/9/15235940/facebook-instagram-acq... 3. https://techcrunch.com/2012/04/13/instagrams-user-count-now-at-40-million-saw-10-million-new-users-in-last-10-days/ https://techcrunch.com/2012/04/13/instagrams-user-count-now-...
hoten 6y ago
It's not about what the app does, it's about the eyeballs looking at it.
abc-xyz 6y ago
The value TikTok brings to the CCP cannot be understated. > ByteDance has had a party committee since 2017 and is headed by CCP secretary and company editor-in-chief Zhang Fuping (張輔評), reported Human Rights Watch. Members of the committee hold regular gatherings at which they study speeches by Chinese Chairman Xi Jinping (習近平) and "pledge to follow the party in technological innovation." > In addition, ByteDance on April 25, 2019, signed a strategic cooperation agreement with the Ministry of Public Security's Press and Publicity Bureau (公安部新聞宣傳局) in Beijing. The agreement was billed as "aiming to give full play to the professional technology and platform advantages of Toutiao and Tiktok in big data analysis," strengthen the creation and production of "public security new media works," boost "network influence and online discourse power," and enhance "public security propaganda, guidance, influence, and credibility," among other aspects. https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3982027 https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3982027
- verdverm 6y ago
  CCP has increased oversight of more private companies this week as well https://www.asiatimesfinancial.com/ccp-announces-plan-to-take-control-of-chinas-private-sector https://www.asiatimesfinancial.com/ccp-announces-plan-to-tak...
tapirl 6y ago
Tiktok is not the only product of BytesDance. It developed tons of other apps in China market.

smt88 6y ago

You mention the number of employees and the complexity of the software. Neither matters for the valuation. Maybe it should, but it's not what the market cares about at this stage of the company. The $50B is for the 100M users MAUs, 50M of which are active daily[1]. They have a billion downloads as well. As a comparison, Facebook paid $1B for 30-40M signups on Instagram2[2][3]. Their MAUs and DAUs at the time would've been a small fraction of that. So if we consider TikTok's downloads to be equivalent to Instagram's signups, the valuation isn't crazy at all (especially since TikTok has revenue). 1. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/24/tiktok-reveals-us-global-user-growth-numbers-for-first-time.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/24/tiktok-reveals-us-global-use... 2. https://www.vox.com/2017/4/9/15235940/facebook-instagram-acquisition-anniversary https://www.vox.com/2017/4/9/15235940/facebook-instagram-acq... 3. https://techcrunch.com/2012/04/13/instagrams-user-count-now-at-40-million-saw-10-million-new-users-in-last-10-days/ https://techcrunch.com/2012/04/13/instagrams-user-count-now-...

hoten 6y ago

It's not about what the app does, it's about the eyeballs looking at it.

abc-xyz 6y ago

The value TikTok brings to the CCP cannot be understated. > ByteDance has had a party committee since 2017 and is headed by CCP secretary and company editor-in-chief Zhang Fuping (張輔評), reported Human Rights Watch. Members of the committee hold regular gatherings at which they study speeches by Chinese Chairman Xi Jinping (習近平) and "pledge to follow the party in technological innovation." > In addition, ByteDance on April 25, 2019, signed a strategic cooperation agreement with the Ministry of Public Security's Press and Publicity Bureau (公安部新聞宣傳局) in Beijing. The agreement was billed as "aiming to give full play to the professional technology and platform advantages of Toutiao and Tiktok in big data analysis," strengthen the creation and production of "public security new media works," boost "network influence and online discourse power," and enhance "public security propaganda, guidance, influence, and credibility," among other aspects. https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3982027 https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3982027

verdverm 6y ago
CCP has increased oversight of more private companies this week as well https://www.asiatimesfinancial.com/ccp-announces-plan-to-take-control-of-chinas-private-sector https://www.asiatimesfinancial.com/ccp-announces-plan-to-tak...

tapirl 6y ago

Tiktok is not the only product of BytesDance. It developed tons of other apps in China market.