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TikTok owner ByteDance marks 10th anniversary without founder Zhang Yiming as firm’s IPO plans remain up in the air
- ByteDance chief executive Liang Rubo quoted some of Zhang’s past comments in a motivational speech to employees on Friday
- The Beijing-based company has become one of the internet industry’s most successful start-ups, with a reach that covers 1.9 billion people every month
Coco Fengin Beijing
TikTok owner ByteDance, the world’s most valuable unicorn, on Friday marked its 10th anniversary in a muted celebration that was broadcast online to its employees, an event where billionaire founder Zhang Yiming was conspicuously absent.
Chief executive Liang Rubo, who co-founded ByteDance in 2012 and took over its leadership role at the end of last year, quoted some of Zhang’s past comments in a speech to employees, whom he urged to move forward with a sense of mission to “inspire creativity, enrich life”, according to three people who attended the online event.
The heads of the company’s six business groups, including Singapore-based TikTok chief executive Chew Shou Zi, took their turns to speak after Liang, following his lead to motivate the employees, the people said.
In general, their speeches did not address any specific issues such as the company’s financial status or plans for an initial public offering, according to one of the people, who declined to be identified because the occasion was an internal event. The company’s IPO plans have been postponed until later this year, after regulatory hurdles in China are resolved, according to a report by the South China Morning Post last October, citing three people briefed on the matter.
ByteDance’s 10-year milestone comes after it announced a sweeping corporate restructuring last November, which analysts described as putting an end to the company’s aggressive expansion and heralding a new era of consolidation.
The muted celebration on Friday not only reflects the company’s focus on strengthening its existing assets, but also the Chinese government’s tightened regulation after a series of crackdowns against Big Tech firms.
ByteDance burnished its tech credentials by building hugely popular artificial intelligence-powered apps, including global hit short video-sharing platform TikTok, its Chinese version Douyin and news aggregator Jinri Toutiao. In recent years, the company has sought to diversify its revenue stream by branching into e-commerce, online education, financial technology and video gaming.
Today, the privately-held firm runs six business groups: TikTok, Douyin, work collaboration unit Lark, business services unit BytePlus, video gaming unit Nuverse and edtech unit Dali Education.
Following its reorganisation, ByteDance has continued to make calculated moves that ensure it does not stray from its business goals and Beijing’s regulatory regime, while exploring potentially significant areas for expansion.
Earlier this month, TikTok launched a music distribution platform where artists can market their work to the short video app’s more than 1 billion users worldwide. Available in the US, the UK, Brazil and Indonesia, the new SoundOn platform allows artists to upload their music directly to TikTok, as well as to ByteDance’s own music streaming service Resso.
ByteDance also reassigned three managers from Douyin to subsidiary Pico Interactive, doubling down on the start-up’s potential as a major vendor of virtual reality headsets on the mainland. That followed ByteDance’s new collaboration with US semiconductor giant Qualcomm.
In other enterprises, ByteDance has decided to retreat. The company sold its loss-making securities unit Beijing Wenxing Online Technology Co in February, soon after closing the operations of fashion retail app Dmonstudio. In December, social networking platform Feiliao was taken offline, months after the instant messenger was relaunched as a Clubhouse-like audio social app.
Chinese TikTok merchants look for ‘first pot of gold’ in overseas markets
Chinese TikTok merchants look for ‘first pot of gold’ in overseas markets
Commenting on recent developments, TikTok head Chew told Bloomberg earlier this month that it was “challenging to build a global company” because “you need to be global and local at the same time”.
ByteDance – started by Zhang in a Beijing residential flat, where an AI algorithm was developed to push content based on a user’s personal interests – has become one of the internet industry’s most successful start-ups, with a global payroll of 110,000 employees and a reach that covers 1.9 billion people every month, according to the company’s statement on Friday.
The company had a valuation of US$350 billion, according to the latest Hurun Global Unicorn Index published by Shanghai-based Hurun Research Institute in December. Total 2021 revenue reached US$58 billion, up 70 per cent from a year earlier, according to a Reuters report. Its 2020 revenue, by contrast, grew 111 per cent to US$34.3 billion.
ByteDance founder Zhang Yiming gives up another corporate role
ByteDance founder Zhang Yiming gives up another corporate role
Zhang, who stepped down as ByteDance chief executive at the end of last year, introduced Buddhist wisdom during his time at the helm of the company. In March last year, he told employees to keep an “ordinary mind”, referring to Buddhists’ attitude of non-attachment to all phenomena.
By comparison, the 2020 anniversary celebration saw Zhang take on a global CEO role in line with the firm’s overseas expansion, while declaring education as “a strategic new direction”.
Citing Zhang’s words, ByteDance head Liang on Friday told employees they “should not stop halfway or take short cuts” in their work, according to a statement from the company.
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