- The world’s most valuable start-up grew sales to nearly US$120 billion in 2023 from US$80 billion in 2022, people familiar said
- ByteDance in December offered to buy back up to US$5 billion of its own shares from investors, valuing the start-up at US$268 billion.
ByteDance’s profit surged roughly 60 per cent in 2023, outpacing the growth of online peers Tencent Holdings and Alibaba Group Holding, in a sign of the TikTok owner’s resilience in the face of an economic downturn.
Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation
jumped to more than US$40 billion from about US$25 billion in 2022, according
to people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be named discussing
private information. The world’s most valuable start-up also grew sales to
nearly US$120 billion from US$80 billion, the people said.
The results mark the first time that ByteDance has overtaken
arch-rival Tencent both in revenue and profit as it leveraged its popular
short-video platforms to expand into international e-commerce. While
ByteDance’s internal figures have not been independently audited, they suggest
the ad-churning social media juggernaut became one of the world’s
fastest-growing tech giants in 2023.