We have seen that TikTok has been giving a lot of statements lately regarding the growth of its company which is all possible thanks to the pandemic after which the growth of the company fueled in the US and other parts of the world. However, it has been rocked by allegations such as sharing data with the Chinese government as well as having servers in China and sending data back and forth between the country of operation and China. However, TikTok says that it has never shared any data with the China Government and it never will even if asked. Despite that, it is known that TikTok has been banned in India due to the privacy policy violations as well as the tense situation between China and India.
Now, at a forum in Indonesia, TikTok’s CEO seemed to have revealed a plan from the company to expand its reach in Indonesia and Southeast Asia. TikTok’s CEO said, “We’re going to invest billions of dollars in Indonesia and Southeast Asia over the next few years”. He added that “content on its platform was becoming more diversified as it adds more users and expands beyond advertising into e-commerce, allowing consumers to purchase goods through links on the app during live streaming”. TikTok did not reveal the full plan but added that “it would invest in training, advertising and supporting small vendors looking to join its e-commerce platform TikTok Shop”.
The investment in TikTok’s e-commerce platform is interesting and not coincidental because the company recently said that they want to reach a revenue target of 20 Billion USD just from the TikTok Shop by end of this year which is currently at 4-5 Billion which means they will have to 5x their growth in the next few months to reach its target which also means that a lot of investment has to be made on the platform in different parts of the world. It is also worth noting that China and US are the two biggest platforms for TikTok followed by Southeast Asia. These markets will be the main revenue opportunities for TikTok’s e-commerce platform.
