BEIJING: The profits of TikTok owner ByteDance jumped around 60% in 2023, Bloomberg reported today citing sources, beating online rivals Tencent and Alibaba.
ByteDance has grown into one of the world’s biggest tech firms – best known in most countries as the creator of video app TikTok – since its birth in a Beijing apartment 12 years ago.
The company has rocketed in recent years to become one of the most valuable tech giants in the world, worth around US$225 billion, according to market intelligence firm CP Insights.
Bloomberg’s report, which cited “people familiar with the matter”, said the company’s earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortisation soared to more than US$40 billion from around US$25 billion in 2022.
The report said sales also grew to nearly $120 billion from $80 billion.
The reported results mark the first time that ByteDance has overtaken archrival Tencent in both revenue and profit, Bloomberg said, adding that the internal figures had not been independently audited.
ByteDance did not immediately respond to an AFP request for comment.
The company launched TikTok in 2017 and the app took the world by storm, crossing a billion users in four years.
The app was an international version of Douyin, which was released in China in 2016 and now has hundreds of millions of users.
Thanks to the explosive growth of these apps, ByteDance has branched out into e-commerce and travel bookings and also released a video editing app.
The Chinese company says it has more than 150,000 employees in almost 120 cities around the world.
