ByteDance Estimated To Take In $7B In Revs First 6 Months Of 2019

For the first half of the year, TikTok-parent ByteDance reportedly raked in $7 billion to $8.4 billion. That’s what sources are tellingReuters, adding the Beijing-based ByteDance expects to achieve profitability this year.

If accurate, that’s an impressive haul, considering the company reportedly took in approximately $7 billion for the whole of 2018.  

ByteDance bought TikTok in 2017, which was then named musical.ly. 

Since then, the video-sharing platform has firmly established itself as one of the most downloaded offerings on Apple’s App Store. Earlier this month, Blake Chandlee, TikTok vice president, suggested the app boasts more than half a billion users.

During the first quarter of the year, TikTok racked up 33 million new installs, according to Sensor Tower.

While TikTok continues to find new audiences around the world, ByteDance still makes the majority of its money in China, sources tell Reuters.

Threatening TikTok’s growth in new markets, it recently emerged the app has a history of censuring political dissenters in China, its home country.

According to internal documents recently obtained by The Guardian, the app has instructed content moderators to scrub mentions of Tiananmen Square, Tibetan independence and other topics the Chinese government doesn't want discussed in the public sphere.

In response, ByteDance released an official statement insisting the content guidelines obtained by The Guardian were dated and no longer used by its moderators.

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