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.