TikTok’s owner ByteDance has overtaken Baidu to become China’s second-largest digital ad player, accounting for 23 per cent, or 50 billion yuan (US$7.1 billion) of all digital media spend in the country in the first half of 2019, leapfrogging Baidu and Tencent and behind only Alibaba.
The owner of the global short video hit app, which is facing pressure in the US over censorship concerns, achieved 113 per cent growth in ad revenue in the first half compared to the same period last year, according to the China Media Inflation Trend Report 2020 conducted by consultancy R3.