Updated on July 23, 2024
November 9, 2023
TikTok Global going public (IPO) has been discussed for several years. And while the company’s management has confirmed that an TikTok IPO is indeed on the cards, its date has not been clear for a long time. So how is this company going public right now? Can we really expect its IPO? You will learn that and much more in this text.
TikTok Global and its business
Who doesn’t know TikTok ? It is a very popular social network that is primarily used to upload short videos that other users can react to in different ways and also share them on other social networks. TikTok Global is a subsidiary of Beijing-based ByteDance. So we can say that TikTok is originated from China. And it was here that this network was launched in 2016. At that time still under the name Douyin, a year later already known worldwide under the name TikTok. However, it has retained its original name Douyin in China to this day.
Today, TikTok is famous all over the world. Free registration is possible from virtually anywhere. And its services can also be used from different parts of the world. So if you own a mobile phone with Android or IOS operating system, to which you can download the TikTok application. However, it gained its popularity only in 2018, when it was connected with Musical.ly. It was then that it became truly available worldwide. It currently boasts a wide user base of more than 1 billion users.
IPO TikTok Global
The fact that TikTok Global should enter the market has been discussed since 2020, when its parent company ByteDance confirmed this intention. In April 2021, more detailed preparations for the IPO were discussed in an article on Bloomberg. It clearly showed that ByteDance and TikTok are planning to go public separately. In the case of TikTok, it should be the US stock exchange, and for ByteDance, it should be the stock exchange in Hong Kong.
And although the words about the IPO fell already in 2020, today the approximate date when this event should take place is already known. The company is reportedly planning to make its initial public offering in late 2023. More precisely, it is estimated to be December 21, 2023. Previously, the problem was that TikTok and its Chinese counterpart Douyin were not operationally separate. They use the same algorithm and largely the same technology. And that did not meet the requirements of the stock exchanges for the structure of the company. Today, however, this situation has already been resolved, and therefore nothing prevents Tiktok from entering the American stock exchange.
Investor interest
Investor interest in TikTok is respectable. Currently, the main ones include SoftBank, Sequoia Capital China, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and 7 other venture capital companies that partially finance this project. And although TikTok and ByteDance shares are not yet in the world, you too can invest in TikTok. And it will buy shares of Kohlberk Kravis Roberts or SoftBank, which owns shares of ByteDance – the owner of TikTok.
If we talk about the price of TikTok Global, in 2020 investors estimated its value at 50 billion dollars. That was more than some of the more established tech giants like Snapchat. ByteDance as a whole is then valued at $250 billion on the private capital markets. Some sources even state a value of up to 400 billion dollars. And that would mean that it is the most valuable start-up in the world.
TikTok IPO Future outlook
Since its launch in 2016, TikTok has grown in popularity. And this was subsequently exacerbated by the coronavirus crisis, when TikTok saw a large wave of new registrations. At the beginning of last year, it even became the most visited website on the Internet, temporarily dethroning even Google. Other networks such as Instagram, Facebook and YouTube decided to respond to the growing popularity of the TikTok application by imitating the short video clips that its users liked so much.
In the future, we can probably expect efforts to increase the popularization of TikTok, which should aim to accelerate the growth of the audience even more. According to The Information, there should be new features in the game that should connect users of this network with their friends. Expansion into shopping is also being discussed at the same time. And that’s what should boost TikTok’s revenue.
