ByteDance

ByteDance was established on 13 March 2012 by Zhang Yiming and Liang Rubo, and operates under the mission "Inspire Creativity, Enrich Life." Its portfolio spans TikTok, Douyin, CapCut, TikTok Shop, Toutiao, Lark, Pico and Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, and the company employs over 150,000 people across nearly 120 cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Singapore, London, Los Angeles and New York. Douyin, its Chinese short-video app, reported roughly 750 million daily active users, while TikTok reaches about 1.9 billion monthly active users globally and the Toutiao news aggregator about 410 million monthly users.

The business monetises attention at enormous scale. Contrary Research estimates advertising supplies roughly 75% of revenue across TikTok, Douyin and Toutiao, e-commerce commissions from Douyin and TikTok Shop about 19%, and live-streaming gifts and virtual items around 5%, with AI services an emerging fourth line. A single shared stack of recommendation algorithms, advertising infrastructure and AI systems runs beneath every app, so improvements in ranking or ad targeting compound across the portfolio rather than being rebuilt product by product.

ByteDance is now the largest social media company in the world by revenue. Group revenue reached $155 billion in 2024, up 29% year on year, and about $186 billion in 2025, up roughly 20%. First-quarter 2025 revenue topped $43 billion against Meta's $42.3 billion, and second-quarter revenue rose 25% year on year to roughly $48 billion. Growth has shifted decisively offshore: overseas revenue grew close to 50% in 2025 versus about 20% in China, and passed 30% of the group total for the first time, up from 25% in 2024, driven mainly by TikTok Shop, whose gross merchandise value grew nearly 70%.

Two forces define the current trajectory. The first is artificial intelligence: ByteDance's 2025 net profit fell more than 70% as it poured money into AI, it lifted planned 2026 capital expenditure above 200 billion yuan (about US$30 billion) — at least 25% higher than an earlier 160 billion yuan plan — and it is reported to be training a model of roughly 10 trillion parameters. The second is the resolution of its long-running US problem: in January 2026 TikTok's American operations moved into TikTok U.S. Data Security Joint Venture LLC, in which ByteDance retains 19.9% alongside Oracle, Silver Lake and MGX at 15% each. With that overhang removed, General Atlantic began marketing a stake at a valuation of $550 billion, up from the $330 billion implied by an August 2025 employee buyback.