This month marks the one-year anniversary of the former US president Donald Trump administration’s initial threat to ban ByteDance Ltd (字節跳動)-owned TikTok, entangling the social media platform into the unpredictable Web of geopolitics.
Despite the existential distraction, the short-video app has thrived over the past year. Now, with its popularity surging, TikTok might be poised to achieve the goal that is the dream of every major US technology company: a super-app for the Western world.
TikTok’s growth and the level of its user engagement have been remarkable. According to Sensor Tower, the app was the most downloaded and highest-grossing non-game during the first half of this year, surpassing 3 billion total installs. Analysts expect TikTok to keep growing faster than its competitors, and industry tracker eMarketer projects that the app’s user base in the US would rise 18 percent this year, compared with a 1 percent increase for Facebook Inc and a 4 percent gain for Facebook’s Instagram.
Most impressive of all, TikTok users are growing more addicted to the short-video service. Research firm App Annie has said that the app has surpassed Google’s YouTube for average time spent per user in the US and the UK.
Competitors are noticing the app’s rise and taking action. Last month, Facebook executive Adam Mosseri said Instagram plans to move beyond its central photo-sharing feature and embrace full-screen mobile video entertainment, citing TikTok’s success.
Similarly, YouTube and Snap Inc have launched short-video services and are also paying creators directly for their content.
However, TikTok might be in the best position to win. Because it has the largest audience for short video and an unrivaled ability to add innovative features to the medium, there is little reason for creators to go elsewhere — and this is just the beginning.
TikTok is expanding its ambitions. Already, the app has made several moves beyond its core of recorded video entertainment — from gaming and jobs services to live music concerts — that could presage a larger offering in each space.
For example, I am having fun playing with TikTok’s experimental farming simulator mini-game on user profiles. The company’s innovative TikTok Resumes, which lets people apply for positions at dozens of companies through video applications, is a good example of the company’s creativity.
In may ways, TikTok’s own career job site gives the biggest insight into what the app will focus on for its next big thing: live-streaming social commerce. By searching through the company’s listings, I found more than 100 openings with “e-commerce” in the title and almost 90 for the word “live.”
Reading through the descriptions, it is clear that TikTok plans to invest aggressively to cultivate live-streaming creators in numerous categories — including fashion and beauty, lifestyle and technology — and empower them to sell merchandise directly on the platform. It is likely to be a large and lucrative opportunity.
There is a roadmap for this type of push, and it comes from TikTok’s sibling app Douyin (抖音) in China, also owned by ByteDance. Influencers there use the app to regularly sell millions of dollars’ worth of products from their live-video streams.
Of course, TikTok is not entirely free from the US government’s scrutiny. While the administration of US President Joe Biden revoked Trump-era app bans last month, it opened a review of foreign-owned apps that potentially pose a data-security risk to Americans. With the new order, TikTok might still face regulatory action.
Beijing’s clampdown on US public listings, following Didi Global Inc’s (滴滴) controversial one, could make TikTok’s eventual initial public offering (IPO) more complicated.
However, a public-listing delay might turn out to be beneficial for the video service. With the financial opportunity in e-commerce live-streaming — not to mention gaming and from other services — TikTok could be setting the stage for an even bigger IPO splash.
Tae Kim is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering technology. He previously covered technology for Barron’s, following an earlier career as an equity analyst.
This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.
MULTIFACETED: A task force has analyzed possible scenarios and created responses to assist domestic industries in dealing with US tariffs, the economics minister said The Executive Yuan is tomorrow to announce countermeasures to US President Donald Trump’s planned reciprocal tariffs, although the details of the plan would not be made public until Monday next week, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said yesterday. The Cabinet established an economic and trade task force in November last year to deal with US trade and tariff related issues, Kuo told reporters outside the legislature in Taipei. The task force has been analyzing and evaluating all kinds of scenarios to identify suitable responses and determine how best to assist domestic industries in managing the effects of Trump’s tariffs, he
TIGHT-LIPPED: UMC said it had no merger plans at the moment, after Nikkei Asia reported that the firm and GlobalFoundries were considering restarting merger talks United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電), the world’s No. 4 contract chipmaker, yesterday launched a new US$5 billion 12-inch chip factory in Singapore as part of its latest effort to diversify its manufacturing footprint amid growing geopolitical risks. The new factory, adjacent to UMC’s existing Singapore fab in the Pasir Res Wafer Fab Park, is scheduled to enter volume production next year, utilizing mature 22-nanometer and 28-nanometer process technologies, UMC said in a statement. The company plans to invest US$5 billion during the first phase of the new fab, which would have an installed capacity of 30,000 12-inch wafers per month, it said. The
‘SWASTICAR’: Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s close association with Donald Trump has prompted opponents to brand him a ‘Nazi’ and resulted in a dramatic drop in sales Demonstrators descended on Tesla Inc dealerships across the US, and in Europe and Canada on Saturday to protest company chief Elon Musk, who has amassed extraordinary power as a top adviser to US President Donald Trump. Waving signs with messages such as “Musk is stealing our money” and “Reclaim our country,” the protests largely took place peacefully following fiery episodes of vandalism on Tesla vehicles, dealerships and other facilities in recent weeks that US officials have denounced as terrorism. Hundreds rallied on Saturday outside the Tesla dealership in Manhattan. Some blasted Musk, the world’s richest man, while others demanded the shuttering of his
Taiwan’s official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) last month rose 0.2 percentage points to 54.2, in a second consecutive month of expansion, thanks to front-loading demand intended to avoid potential US tariff hikes, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. While short-term demand appeared robust, uncertainties rose due to US President Donald Trump’s unpredictable trade policy, CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) told a news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s economy this year would be characterized by high-level fluctuations and the volatility would be wilder than most expect, Lien said Demand for electronics, particularly semiconductors, continues to benefit from US technology giants’ effort
RSS