Beijing ByteDance Technology Co (北京字節跳動科技), the company behind giant Chinese media start-up Jinri Toutiao (每日頭條), has acquired teen social video app Musical.ly for about US$800 million, people familiar with the deal said.
The acquisition represents the biggest venture abroad thus far for a Chinese start-up valued at US$20 billion that has already spawned one of the world’s largest news services.
ByteDance beat out rival bidders including Kuaishou (快手), the viral video streaming service, the people said, asking not to be identified discussing a private matter.
ByteDance announced the deal yesterday without citing a price tag.
The start-up gains a big US presence, adding Musical.ly’s 100 million-strong contingent of lip-synching video performers to Toutiao’s own 120 million readers and viewers, while potentially tacking on a social media component to its bread-and-butter news offering.
Musical.ly, founded in Shanghai by Louis Yang (楊陸育) and Alex Zhu (朱駿) in 2014, exploded in popularity among US teens last year and has since expanded beyond its flagship app for creating and sharing personal music videos.
Last year, it rolled out a live-streaming app called Live.ly.
The start-up struck deals with media firms including Viacom Inc and Comcast Corp’s NBCUniversal to make original shows.
Jinri Toutiao — or “Today’s Headlines” — is one of the few Chinese Internet operations to have found success without the backing of one of the country’s three biggest industry players: Tencent Holdings Ltd (騰訊), Baidu Inc (百度) and Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (阿里巴巴).
Now all three are refining their own news apps to try and steal business from Toutiao.
Toutiao aggregates news and videos from hundreds of media outlets and has become one of the world’s largest news services in the span of five years.
Its parent company was valued at more than US$20 billion, a person familiar with the matter said, on par with Elon Musk’s SpaceX.
Started by Zhang Yiming (張一鳴), it is on track to pull in about US$2.5 billion in revenue this year, largely from advertising.
ByteDance wants to become a global success by turning its artificial intelligence tools on the rest of the world.
The company’s overseas efforts are now spearheaded by TopBuzz, an app similar to its core offering in China, and Flipagram, a video platform acquired in February this year.
It added to the push this week by acquiring aggregation platform News Republic from Cheetah Mobile Inc (獵豹移動), which is also an investor in Musical.ly, for US$86.6 million.
Merida Industry Co (美利達) has seen signs of recovery in the US and European markets this year, as customers are gradually depleting their inventories, the bicycle maker told shareholders yesterday. Given robust growth in new orders at its Taiwanese factory, coupled with its subsidiaries’ improving performance, Merida said it remains confident about the bicycle market’s prospects and expects steady growth in its core business this year. CAUTION ON CHINA However, the company must handle the Chinese market with great caution, as sales of road bikes there have declined significantly, affecting its revenue and profitability, Merida said in a statement, adding that it would
i Gasoline and diesel prices at fuel stations are this week to rise NT$0.1 per liter, as tensions in the Middle East pushed crude oil prices higher last week, CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) and Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) said yesterday. International crude oil prices last week rose for the third consecutive week due to an escalating conflict between Israel and Iran, as the market is concerned that the situation in the Middle East might affect crude oil supply, CPC and Formosa said in separate statements. Front-month Brent crude oil futures — the international oil benchmark — rose 3.75 percent to settle at US$77.01
RISING: Strong exports, and life insurance companies’ efforts to manage currency risks indicates the NT dollar would eventually pass the 29 level, an expert said The New Taiwan dollar yesterday rallied to its strongest in three years amid inflows to the nation’s stock market and broad-based weakness in the US dollar. Exporter sales of the US currency and a repatriation of funds from local asset managers also played a role, said two traders, who asked not to be identified as they were not authorized to speak publicly. State-owned banks were seen buying the greenback yesterday, but only at a moderate scale, the traders said. The local currency gained 0.77 percent, outperforming almost all of its Asian peers, to close at NT$29.165 per US dollar in Taipei trading yesterday. The
RECORD LOW: Global firms’ increased inventories, tariff disputes not yet impacting Taiwan and new graduates not yet entering the market contributed to the decrease Taiwan’s unemployment rate last month dropped to 3.3 percent, the lowest for the month in 25 years, as strong exports and resilient domestic demand boosted hiring across various sectors, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday. After seasonal adjustments, the jobless rate eased to 3.34 percent, the best performance in 24 years, suggesting a stable labor market, although a mild increase is expected with the graduation season from this month through August, the statistics agency said. “Potential shocks from tariff disputes between the US and China have yet to affect Taiwan’s job market,” Census Department Deputy Director Tan Wen-ling
RSS