Tik Tok Photo: IC

 The Biden administration can make a wise choice on TikTok, as the growth of the video sharing app, an increasingly complicated technology platform, not only enlarges the boundary of the US internet sector, but also creates new opportunities for developers and users alike in the world’s largest economy, Chinese analysts said.

The comments come as ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company, reportedly shelved a plan to sell its US assets to a group led by Oracle and Walmart, following Donald Trump’s exit from the White House, according to a report from the South China Morning Post, citing an unidentified source.

“The deal was mainly designed to entertain demands from the Trump administration. But Trump is gone, and the raison d’être of the deal is gone with him,” said the source. 

Former US President Donald Trump once ordered the popular video app to be be sold to an American company or a group of US companies, last year, citing national security concerns. Oracle and Walmart beat out Microsoft to become the frontrunners to buy TikTok. 

In a related development last week, the Biden administration decreed to delay the government’s appeal of a federal district court judge’s December injunction against the TikTok ban.

It seems that the Biden administration is taking a “cleverer path” than his predecessor – the least intervention in normal business operations as well as taking advantage of others’ technology edge to create well-paying jobs in the US, Liu Dingding, a Beijing-based internet industry analyst, told the Global Times on Monday.

A prospering TikTok will also bring fresh air to the internet sector in the US, provide “tons of new opportunities” to developers and young people in the US who are eager to create and innovate on the platform, Liu said.

Liu said that the sell-off to a US company may not be the best choice for those who want to share the dividends of TikTok’s growing business in the US market.

In 2020, the number of downloads of TikTok topped the list on the US mobile app rankings. Currently, TikTok owns more than 100 million active users in the US, close to one-third of the US population.

TikTok's revenue in January was up 3.8 times from the same period last year, a report released by data research firm Sensor Tower showed. About 82 percent of that revenue was generated by Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, while the US and Turkish markets contributed 8 percent and 2 percent, respectively.

Apart from the rapid increase of ordinary users in the US, TikTok is planning an aggressive expansion into e-commerce in the US marekt, the Financial Times reported, citing people who have seen the app's plans for new features that it could introduce in 2021.

“Although, we generally take a positive outlook that Biden will respect business rules in its future policy, there would still be uncertainties in TikTok’s future operations in the US, such as privacy concerns and anti-trust charges,” Liu cautioned.

Global Times