BEIJING, December 22 (TMTPost)— ByteDance Ltd. is on the track to overtake Tencent with more than hundreds of billions of dollars of sales.

Credit：Visual China

ByteDance has raked in more than US$110 billion during the year 2023 with an annual growth of about 30%, Bloomberg reported, quoting people with knowledge of the matter. The figure underlines the TikTok owner’s potential to surpass Chinese arch-rival Tencent Holdings Ltd in terms of sales. With a growth broadly matching the pace it managed in 2022, ByteDance would outrun internet giants at home abroad like Tencent and Meta Platforms Inc. Tencent reported revenue of RMB154.6 billion (US$21.5 billion) in the quarter ended September 30, increasing around 10% from a year ago. The WeChat owner delivered an over 10% of  growth in the third straight quarter. Meta posted revenue of US$34.15 billion with a 23% year-over-year (YoY) increase in revenue, the strongest growth in the past three quarters of the year.

A report last month has suggested ByteDance is well on the course to outperform Tencent by sales. ByteDance’s revenue in the second quarter of this year jumped 40% YoY to US$29 billion, the U.S. tech media outlet The Information cited people familiar with the figures. If the data is accurate, TikTok parent should have delivered a much robust growth and its quarterly sales have overtaken Tencent. Tencent’s revenue rose 11% YoY to RMB149.2 billion in the quarter ended June 30, missing the Wall Street expectation of RMB152.021 billion.

ByteDance is also closing gap with Meta Platforms, Inc. The U.S. internet giant posted revenue of US$32 billion with an 11% YoY increase in the second quarter. The report attributed its revenue achievement to advertising and e-commerce. ByteDance recorded revenue of US$54 billion in the first half of the year, about 89% of Meta’s in the same quarter, according to the report.

The recent report about ByteDance’s annual revenue highlighted the fledgling e-commerce business of TikTok, whch has been developed into a major source of ByteDance’s stellar growth this year. News earlier this year suggested while the Chinese tech titan gets a bulk of revenue from China, where it operates TikTok’s sister app Douyin, overseas operations, especially TikTok, are helping drive its growth.  

The Information reported in August that ByteDance recorded revenue of US$85 billion last year with a 38% YoY  increase, while revenue from China grew to US $69 billion with at growth rate of 25%, about one third of annual growth for the year 2021, as growth in the market had slowed to 68% that year, down from rates of 150% and 105% in 2019 and 2020 respectively. In comparison, TikTok as well as video games, softwares and other overseas businesses contributed US$16 billion last year, more than doubling US $6.5 billion of sales in 2021. These overseas operations only generated US$1.2 billion in year 2020.In the quarter ended June, markets outside China contributed US$5.8 billion, or about 20% of ByteDance’s total revenue, and the most majority came from TikTok, which likely generated at least US$5 billion, The Information cited people familiar with the figures last month. 

TikTok’s e-commerce business was said earlier this week to generate US$4.4 billion in Southeast Asia alone this year, compared with around US$1.0 billion of its total gross merchandise value (GMV) in the beginning year 2021. Southeast Asia markets could have contributed almost US$15 billion for TikTok’s e-commerce in 2023 if the Indonesian government had not impose a ban more than two months ago, reported Chinese digital media 36Kr. TikTok was said to suffer at least US$1 billion of loss due to the temporary shutdown of e-commerce in Indonesia.

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