TikTok News: Is Microsoft buying TikTok? 🤔🤔

TikTok is a Chinese video-sharing social networking service owned by ByteDance, a China based tech giant. It has been in limelight for all bad reasons for last many weeks now. In July, India government banned 59 Chinese apps and Ticktok was the most prominent app.

Now TikTok is in news again. Now in US and it appears that American Tech giant Microsoft is in talks to buy TikTok in US.

TikTok is under heavy political pressure from US government and specially from US president Donald Trump. Mr. Trump on Friday night said he would ban TikTok from the U.S. as he has the authority to do so by executive order or under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. Now it appear that TikTok may have second chance in US as, Microsoft is looking to acquire US business of TikTok.

It is unclear at this time as to how advanced the talks between Microsoft and ByteDance are at this stage. This development was first reported by Fox Business Network

A purchase of TikTok would represent a coup d'état for Microsoft. Microsoft is largest US Tech conglomerate but it doesn’t have any sizable presence in social media. Though Microsoft owns LinkedIn which is a largest professional network, it is shadowed by social networking giants such as Facebook or Instagram who are popular in teens. Refer below image. It shows most downloaded apps in US last year. None of the Microsoft product is in top 10

                               
                           
Through TikTok, it would gain a popular consumer app that has won over young people all over globe with lip-syncing short clips and viral memes. Microsoft can also cross-promote TikTok’s social media video features across its Xbox gaming console and azure cloud services. It is estimated that TikTok  have 65 million to 80 million users in the United States mainly in age group of 18-35 years. The acquisition could act as a springboard for Microsoft as it will gain access to millions of users who  were perhaps, never part of Microsoft ecosystem.

TikTok is valued anywhere between $20 billion and $40 billion which many very few companies in world can even think of acquiring. However at $1.2 trillion market cap, Microsoft can easily purchase TikTok without breaking a sweat. It would be interesting to see how this develops further.