ByteDance Technology Co. Ltd (Chinese: 字节跳动; pinyin: Zìjié Tiàodòng) is a global technology company headquartered in Beijing, China, founded in March 2012 by Zhang Yiming. The company operates on a variety of platforms that enable people to create, discover, and connect across languages, cultures, and geographies. The majority of the company's products are social media applications. TikTok, Helo (an Indian social media app), Vigo Video Douyin, BytePlus, and Huoshan.[3]
ByteDance's headquarter at night.
According to the company's website, ByteDance is "one of the first companies to launch mobile-first products powered by machine learning technology" with Zhang seeing an opportunity to "combine the power of artificial intelligence with the growth of mobile internet to revolutionize the way people consume and receive information."[4]
One of its early products, the AI-powered Toutiao a.k.a Jinri Toutiao, is one of China's most popular news aggregators. By November 2018, it had been installed in over 240 million unique devices, according to iResearch.[5] ByteDance is also backed by some of venture capital's biggest names, including SoftBank and Sequoia Capital.[5]
History[]
Background and Founding[]
Zhang Yiming, the founder of ByteDance.
Toutiao is the first successful app that ByteDance had developed.
In 2009, entrepreneur Zhang Yiming collaborated with his friend Liang Rubo to develop a real-estate search engine, 99fang.com.[6] In 2011, when the sales of smartphones in China became popular, Zhang noticed there were not many people reading newspapers on subways and he thought that "smartphones would replace newspapers to become the most important medium of information distribution". ByteDance began in Beijing metro.[7]
Yiming wanted to create platforms "whose results were powered by artificial intelligence".[6] They rented an apartment in Zhongguancun to develop a Chinese news app, and it became known as Jinri Toutiao.[6] The app is said to be worth $20 billion. Toutiao currently works with over 20,000 traditional media outlets, which account for 10% of its feed, and 800,000 new media content creators.[8] In 2018, the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film, and Television (SAPPRFT) demanded that a "vulgar" account be removed from the service.[9][10]
During COVID-19 pandemic, and while many companies are busy reducing their workforce, ByteDance announced in April 2020 that it is hiring staff to fill 10,000 vacant positions across multiple domains. ByteDance intends to hire 40,000 employees in 2020 in order to match Alibaba's headcount. ByteDance also intends to strengthen its position in areas such as e-commerce and gaming. The company is also expected to go public in the near future.[11]
Timeline of Products[]
In March 2012, ByteDance launched Neihan Duanzi (内涵段子, meaning: "subtle jokes") as a platform for "jokes, memes, and humorous videos". The app became so controversial for its "misleading and vulgar content" that it led China’s media regulator to tell ByteDance to close down the app on April 10, 2018. Zhang Yiming issued an apology letter soon for "publishing a product that collided with core socialist values".[12][13] Duanzi was then banned permanently. China had previously banned video spoofs and parodies in a March directive, a lot of which appeared on Duanzi.[14]
TopBuzz was launched as an international version of Jinri Toutiao in 2015.[15] According to the website, The app has "36 million monthly active users worldwide" and "200,000 publishers and creators". ByteDance had decided to shut down the app because they "struggled to crack the overseas news app market" to "replicate the broad success of TikTok" and failed to attract an "international audience in five years of operation.".[16]
Huoshan, launched in April 2016 by the Jinri Toutiao team, was ByteDance's first experiment with short videos.[more information needed] ByteDance followed Toutiao with an app called "A.me" in September 2016, to face competition from Kuaishou, a fellow startup that went on to raise funds from Tencent Holdings in 2017. However, because of its early success, it received significantly more investment than its competitors, more than $1 billion from prominent investors such as Sequoia Capital. A.me was then renamed to "Douyin" in December. In September 2017, ByteDance acquired Musical.ly for $1 billion to merge with Flipagram into one app, which became known as TikTok. It was first released in markets globally.[6][7][17] In September 2018, it became the most downloaded app in the United States.[18]
In July 2017, ByteDance launched Vigo Video, an app that lets users upload 15-second videos.[19] A lite version of the app was then released under the name "Vigo Lite". The app became so popular in India that it had over a million monthly active users in May 2020.[20] On June 15, 2020, both apps announced on their websites that they would be shut down on October 31, 2020. The announcement stated that the company has decided to "focus energy and resources on other businesses".[21]
In 2018, ByteDance launched "Helo", an app to "bring people together, create and share content in their own language, and to connect with wider community". The app is ranked number two among the most downloaded free apps on Google PlayStore. an Indian politician, Tejpal Singh, described the app "as positive and entertaining"[22] Helo is available in 15 languages.
In that year, ByteDance bought the app Baca Berita (BaBe) after Indonesia banned TikTok for 8 days on July 3rd, 2018. According to sources, ByteDance ordered its local moderators to delete articles deemed "negative" about Chinese authorities on the app. BaBe responded that it disagreed with the claims and that it moderates content in accordance with its community guidelines and Indonesian laws.[23] It did not respond immediately to a follow-up Reuters query about which month in 2019 those guidelines had changed.[24]
ByteDance released a music-streaming service, Resso, in 2020. the app has 15.2 million total installs on the App Store and Google Play on August. From August 1, 2020 to August 30, the app received approximately 3.6 million installs from first-time users worldwide. Resso was formally released in India and Indonesia.[25]
ByteDance has begun selling the AI technology behind its short video-making app TikTok to other companies. The AI is being sold by the company's new BytePlus division to companies such as GamesApp, Goat, WeGo, and Chilibeli. BytePlus gives customers access to the TikTok recommendation algorithm, which they can "personalise it for their apps and customers".[26]
List of Products[]
| Years | Name | Chinese name | Type(s) | Discontinued? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2011 | Jinri Toutiao/Toutiao | 今日头条/头条 (literal meaning: "Today's Headlines" and "Headlines") |
News aggregator app | No |
| 2012 | Neihan Duanzi | 内涵段子 (literal meaning: "subtle jokes") | Joke entertainment app | Yes |
| 2015 | TopBuzz | N/A | News aggregator app | No |
| 2016 | Douyin Huoshan | 抖音火山版 (literal meaning "Douyin Volcano Edition") |
Video sharing | No |
| Douyin | 抖音 (literal meaning "Vibrating sound") | Video sharing | No | |
| 2017 | Vigo Video/Vigo Lite | N/A | Video sharing | Yes |
| TikTok | N/A | Video sharing | No | |
| 2018 | Helo | N/A | Regional entertainment | No |
| Baca Berita (BaBe) | N/A | News aggregator | No | |
| 2020 | Resso | N/A | Music streaming | No |
| 2021 | BytePlus | N/A | intelligent platform services | No |
Acquired products and others[]
| Year | Name | Chinese name | Type(s)/Industry |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 | Figure Worm | 图虫 (meaning "Figure Worm") |
Photography and image exchange platform |
| 2020 | Shanghai Moonton Technology Co. Ltd. | 上海沐瞳科技有限公司 (meaning "Shanghai Mutong Technology Co. Ltd.") |
Video games |
| Gogokid | N/A | English learning platform | |
| 2018 | FaceU/FaceU Lite | 激萌/脸萌 (meaning "Moe/face cute") |
Camera phone |
| Bcy.net | 半次元 (meaning "Half dimension") |
enthusiasts exchange platform | |
| Curtain | 幕布 (meaning "Curtain") |
Online document application | |
| 2019 | Qingbei Online School | 清北网校 (meaning "Qingbei Online School") |
Online education platform |
| Time Album | 时光相册 (meaning "Time Album") |
Photo management application | |
| In happiness | 幸福里 (meaning "In happiness") |
Real estate trading | |
| Biu campus | biu校园 (meaning "Biu campus") |
Campus social platform | |
| Study hard | 好好学习 (meaning "Study hard") |
Knowledge service mobile phone software | |
| 2020 | Encyclopedia of Famous Doctors | 知识服务类手机软件。 (meaning "Encyclopedia of Famous Doctors") |
Medical science popularization knowledge platform |
Growth[]
ByteDance's platforms have gained widespread popularity.[3] According to mobile app analytics platform Apptopia, one of ByteDance's most popular products, TikTok, increased its revenue by 310 percent to more than $50 million in the fourth quarter of 2019. The revenue of ByteDance increased to $ 17 billion in 2019 from $7.4 billion in 2018.[3] ByteDance's profit for 2019 is estimated to be $3 billion.[3]
In terms of valuation, ByteDance is reportedly worth more than US$100 billion as of May 2020, based on recent secondary market prices for the Chinese company's shares, according to the Financial Times.[3] As a result, ByteDance is now worth more than one-third more than it was in November 2018, when it was valued at around $ 75-$78 billion. Without a doubt, the company is transforming into a formidable online force.[3]
According to Crunchbase, ByteDance has received more than $4.6 billion in funding to date, including investments from SoftBank Group, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, and General Atlantic.[27] Nikkei reached out to all three companies, but they all declined to be interviewed.[27]
The company has made significant investments in its own talent, employing a hiring policy that is unusual in the Chinese tech sector.[27] ByteDance takes chances on unusual recruits rather than prioritizing individuals with overseas qualifications and long track records. This reflects, in part, its founder's own journey: Zhang has never studied or worked abroad.[27]
Chinese tech companies like ByteDance and its peers: Alibaba, Baidu and Tencent operate in the world’s second-largest economy largely without much competition from other global platform players such as Google, Facebook and Amazon.[5] ByteDance, according to Reuters, has a valuation of $78 billion and generated more than $7 billion in revenue for the first half of this year.[5] Baidu has a current market cap of $36.6 billion, while Alibaba has a market cap of $458.7 billion and Tencent has a market cap of $384.5 billion.[5] Google’s market cap, by contrast, is $874.5 billion, but it has historically struggled to do business in China.[5]
Companies like ByteDance, as evidenced by TikTok's popularity, are leading the way in consumer apps, particularly in China, where social commerce on mobile reigns supreme, but that reach is now expanding beyond China, and other companies are taking notice.[5] It was reported earlier this month that Google was considering purchasing another short-form video app called Firework, demonstrating a strong interest in the short-form video format TikTok has popularized on a global scale.[5]
ByteDance, like other tech platforms, makes the majority of its money through advertising, though it is still in the early stages of developing robust ad sales and strategies for TikTok, one of its most popular apps.[5]
Tencent vs ByteDance[]
- Main Article: Tencent vs ByteDance rivalry
However, ByteDance's rise in China has not been without conflict or controversy. The company's most notable accomplishment is that it has achieved this level of success without the assistance of any of the companies such as Tencent, Alibaba, or Baidu. According to Reuters, Alibaba was turned down this year after expressing interest in an investment or acquisition, whereas Tencent is said to have divested itself of a small stake in Bytedance some time ago.[4]
In fact, ByteDance is embroiled in a bitter rivalry with Tencent in particular. Zhang and Tencent founder Pony Ma have made public jabs at each other, and the companies have filed multiple lawsuits against each other. In November 2020, Bytedance accused Tencent of blocking TikTok videos on its platforms, including the dominant messaging app WeChat; Tencent responded by suing ByteDance for libel and anti-competitive practices.
Tencent is the most valuable company in Asia, but ByteDance has managed to pass it with TikTok, allowing it to claim a greater influence on the world's larger social networks. While it could be argued that Tencent's ownership of League of Legends developer Riot Games and a 40% stake in Fortnite studio Epic gives it access to hundreds of millions of gamers around the world, TikTok represents a watershed moment for Chinese internet services.[4]
References[]
- ↑ KrASIA Venture Roundup, "Meet Liang Rubo, incoming CEO at ByteDance | China Venture Roundup Volume 38" - Kr-asia.com (4 Jun 2021)
- ↑ https://cn.linkedin.com/in/rubo-liang-54744824
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 Chayanika Goswami, "ByteDance's Success Story—World's Most Valued Startup" - Startuptalky.com (Mar 30, 2021)
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Sam Byford, "How China’s Bytedance became the world’s most valuable startup" - Theverge.com (Nov 30, 2018)
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 5.6 5.7 5.8 Deanna Ting, Everything you need to know about ByteDance, the company behind TikTok - Digiday (October 30, 2019)
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 https://2.flexiple.com/founders/zhang-yiming
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 Liu, C., & Yu, Y. (2020, March 25). "Inside ByteDance, the $75bn Unicorn Behind TikTok". Nikkei Asia.
- ↑ Yuan, L. (2017, August 24). "The News Reads You In China—and People Can’t Get Enough Of It". WSJ.
- ↑ "Ownership And Control Of Chinese Media". (2021, June 14). Safeguard Defenders.
- ↑ Chen, C., & Deng, I. (2018, April 12). "China Social-media Sites Volunteer Content Clean-up Amid Crackdown". South China Morning Post.
- ↑ Feng, C. (2020, November 5). "TikTok Owner ByteDance On Hiring Spree In China Amid US Troubles". South China Morning Post.
- ↑ Treacy, E. (n.d.). "Chinese Fans Of Banned Parody App Find Each Other Offline Using Secret Codes". TheVerge. Retrieved August 24, 2021
- ↑ Ho, P. (2018, April 12). "Jokes App Neihan Duanzi Shuttered By China’s Media Regulator for ‘vulgarity’" . SupChina.
- ↑ Liao, S. (2018, April 12). "Chinese Fans Of Duanzi Find Each Other Offline Using Secret Codes" The Verge.
- ↑ "TikTok Owner ByteDance Shuts Overseas AI-based News Aggregator TopBuzz" (n.d.) Business Today.
- ↑ Feng, C., & Ye, J. (2020, June 5). "TikTok Owner ByteDance Kills News Aggregator App". South China Morning Post.
- ↑ Smith, G. (2021, May 8). "The History Of TikTok: A Timeline Of the Viral App's Most Important Moments". Dexerto.
- ↑ Bastone, N. (2018, November 3). "TikTok Was the Most-Downloaded App In the US In September". Business Insider.
- ↑ Tripathi, D. (2019, August 27). "TikTok’s 15-second Videos a Rage, But Govt Isn’t Amused. mint". Livemint
- ↑ Kherani, A. (2019, September 2). "How Vigo Video Has Grown Its Monthly Active User Base To 20 Million". Adgully.
- ↑ Singh, M. (2020, June 15). "ByteDance To Shut Down Vigo Apps." TechCrunch
- ↑ Chen, X., Kewalramani, M., & Shaikh, S. (2018, October 23). "Helo: A Chinese App Is Saying Ni Hao And a Lot More In India". FactorDaily.
- ↑ Kelly, M. (2020, August 13). "ByteDance Censored Anti-China Content In Indonesian News App". The Verge.
- ↑ Potkin, F. (2020, August 13). "Exclusive: ByteDance Censored Anti-China Content In Indonesia Until Mid-2020". Reuters. U.S.
- ↑ Kharpal, A. (2020, September 1). "ByteDance Racks Up Users for Music Streaming App Resso In India". CNBC.
- ↑ I. (2021, July 5). "ByteDance Selling TikTok's AI Technology To Firms, Including Those In India" Business Standard.
- ↑ 27.0 27.1 27.2 27.3 Cite error: Invalid
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