TIKTOK’S GLOBAL GROWTH AND EXPANSION : A BUBBLE OR REALITY?

by Dong Lijuan

The breaking business news that topped the charts this week is irrefutable that Kevin Mayer, the former Chairman of Direct-to-Consumer & International Disney was officially appointed as COO of ByteDance and CEO of TikTok. Mayer will lead the business of TikTok in music, gaming, Helo, emerging businesses among others and will contribute to the ambition of company to expand its borders globally .

The recruitment is adding another milestone to the company’s strategic plans and goals in establishing an International boardroom with star company backgrounds . The company has hired the top professional having served for leading companies such as former executive at Warner Music Group Ole Obermann has been assigned as the music director of Byte Beat, former Google veteran Theo Bertram is taking up the seat in the company as director of government relations and public policy in Europe; and Erich Andersen, a former Microsoft chief intellectual property consultant, just commenced his duty in the company as vice president of byte beat law and Chief IP Counsel.

“Kevin’s great experience in building successful global businesses makes him an outstanding fit for our mission of inspiring creativity for users globally. As one of the world’s most accomplished entertainment executives, Kevin is incredibly well placed to take ByteDance’s portfolio of products to the next level. I look forward to working very closely with Kevin on our global development and the next chapter of the ByteDance story.” Yiming Zhang, the founder of ByteDance said in an official press release last week .

Since last year, TikTok has faced a privacy class-action lawsuit over “illegal collection of users’ personal information and sent to China.” in the US and its second-largest oversea market India.

It is believed that the company is desperately looking for solutions to tackle localization issues by leveraging Mayer’s influence and experience in the streaming industry. It also marked another milestone for ByteDance to move forward towards a borderless company since it going global .

Continuing Growth amid Pandemic

For some of those who live in a bubble, Tiktok is by far the most successful platform for creating short mobile videos on earth. The company has emerged to rival companies like Netflix, YouTube, Snapchat, and Facebook with more than 2 billion downloads in over 150 markets worldwide and 75 languages. It’s become so popular nowadays that businesses and individuals alike are looking for ways to Get more TikTok followers so that their content will be seen by as many people as possible and strengthen their reputation.

Tiktok is the subsidiary of Grand Tech Startup ByteDance-a leading Chinese Startup founded in 2012 with mushrooming growth. The company has always been expanding its reach worldwide due to its aggressive expansion programs. At present, Bytedance has offices in over 30 countries worldwide.

The company has employed a great number of professionals from Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and Apple to establish a strong hub at London as its second global headquarter as limitations imposed by Trump Administration on Chinese companies have been increasingly tight.

According to reports of Forbes and Bloomberg, ByteDance surpasses Uber growth as it has become the top Startup with value at $78 Billion.

Hiring than Firing amid Pandemic: A big surprise

It is really surprising that when the biggest companies and Franchises are constantly laying off their employees owing to prolonged lockdowns due to Covid-19, ByteDance has gone on a hiring spree and plans to recruit 10000 professionals in engineering, software and marketing fields that has stunned the world as even tech giants Google, Yahoo, Microsoft have laid off their staff and closed their offices over the covid-19 outbreak advising their employees to work from home.

“Hiring spree on the part of Bytedance amid pandemic is a pleasant surprise for the entrepreneurs, Tech giants and Experts globally. “

Increasing Visibility of ByteDance Globally

With the ambitious journey of growth and reaping the enormous benefits, the company has no more remained a secret for the world as its subsidiary Tiktok has broken all the records of usability and popularity exploring new frontiers with successful footprint. The recent leap of Tiktok to launch its Education initiative in India will further its grip in the Asian markets.

The continual growth empowered it to snap up its American rival app musical.ly in 2017, following its acquiring Los Angeles–based Flipagram, a video and photo creation app set to music clips, and the News Republic, a global mobile news aggregation service based in France. It has also partnered with tech startups including Vedanta, Toppr, Made Easy and Gradeup for generating educational content. In addition to that, the company is increasing its presence in the online education domain in India by collaborating with social enterprises Josh Talks and the Nudge Foundation to mentor 5,000 people across the country.

Will the bubble burst or Sustain Market Shocks?

ByteDance has established footprints in Asia and Europe building strong basis and marketing its services, it is estimated that it can sustain the jolts of pandemic and will retain its position as increasing number of influencers are betting on TikTok post-pandemic, and the popularity graph of the company has maintained upward trend sharply.

 The Tech experts argue that you can download TikTok as it has foreseen opportunity amid pandemic when the entire markets have crashed, Offices, Business, schools, colleges have been closed and stock markets crashed, even in such circumstances, if a company keeps hiring that means it established its strong bases so the bubble is not going to burst likely in post-Covid-19 World provided that it adheres to its policies of customer retention, market intelligence and the most important Artificial intelligence to explore the interests of users and offering more relevant content.

ABOUT AUTHOR: Erin Dong (Lijuan) is currently a global communication strategist in PRNewswire with 7 years broadcasting Journalism (UK) and content strategy & Media Relation experience, she is interested in reporting Chinese tech stories, Erin has a Master degree in International Political Economy (King’s College London)