TikTok’s sales have grown by more than six times its value to reach $1 billion as business operations in the United Kingdom flourish. This is all thanks to advertisers rushing on over to the popular Chinese social media firm.
The headquarters of the company in London, which also entails European operations and some divisions from China, reported around $990 million of gains in revenues over the past year. This is a massive $172 million rise compared to 2021.
These figures are a clear indication of the speed related to the Chinese firm’s massive rise in profits and growth. Moreover, its international division managed to reach a staggering $1 billion target in two years, thanks to the addition of advertising on the app. And that’s around six years since it last launched here.
When we compare this progress to that of Facebook, the app was seen hitting revenues of nearly $1 billion in Europe. And that’s around seven years of kickstarting operations here.
The losses incurred by Tiktok during this period were stated to have risen by a third, where a target of $896 million was recorded. They were spending a lot of funds on staff. We’re talking about an increase in workers by nearly 4300.
But these results are a clear indication of how great the app is performing and its winning streak has continued since the pandemic. Despite major lockdowns in place, people enjoyed the app even more as they were kept busy with such distractions.
The findings in the report claim around $802 million were received through the likes of advertising as TikTok started including digital ads for its platform in 2020.
As you know, this app is very popular with Gen Z which includes teenagers and those in their early 20s. Most brands love reaching out to such target audiences.
The revenues for the app in the UK went up from $51 million to $280 million in 2021. And most of its business had put out sales of around $531 million.
Around the globe, TikTok has nearly one billion users that use the app on a monthly basis. And it continues to provide the toughest competition to archrivals like Meta’s Facebook and Instagram that love to follow in its footsteps.
But the growth has also come at a time when the app is facing immense scrutiny. Be it regular or directly from lawmakers, there are plenty of security concerns involved here. A lot of it has to do with how data is used and the app’s ownership too.
As far as the UK is concerned, it’s facing a mega 27 million pounds fine for breaches of data protection. In the same way, the firm has been slapped with provisional warnings by the country commissioner's office. They reportedly spoke of shocking findings regarding TikTok and how it managed to process data pertaining to young children that were reportedly below 13 and had no consent from their parents as well. But the app blatantly denies all of those findings by the regulator.
In the same way, the firm was seen drawing up a massive agreement so it could be allowed to operate under the leadership of the ex-American president Donald Trump. He tried to push for the sale of the app’s business in the US as he held major reservations about it being owned by the Chinese.
Now, in the UK, a recent account on the app was even shut down as MPs held major concerns regarding data security.
Despite the massive growth, ByteDance which is the platform’s parent firm has been delaying a massive $300 billion float as its valuation dropped in the private market. We even saw the firm’s founder quit in the previous year due to pressure from the capital.
H/T: Financial Times.