The hugely popular video sharing app TikTok (owned by Chinese firm ByteDance) has been under scrutiny by the Trump Administration due to the amount of user data it collects as a potential national security risk. ByteDance has been ordered to sell off it’s U.S. based operations and has been entertaining bids from both Microsoft and Oracle.
Now an unexpected player, Walmart, is throwing their name in the hat eager to take advantage of TikTok’s vast user base and ability to integrate e-commerce and advertising directly into such a widely popular platform.
Walmart stated “We are confident that a Walmart and Microsoft partnership would meet both the expectations of U.S. TikTok users while satisfying the concerns of U.S. government regulators”.
If Walmart is successful in their bid, they would enjoy a huge increase in the amount of customers they can reach and grow their online marketplace via TikTok advertising. Following the announcement, shares of Walmart gained 6%.
ByteDance is expected to enter exclusive talks with a bidder in the coming days and potentially secure a deal by Sept 15th.