TikTok plans to pour “billions of dollars” into Southeast Asia over the next few years, aiming to fuel growth in the US, one of its biggest markets. The company’s CEO Shou Zi Chew made the announcement on Thursday. ,
FILE – This file photo shows the icon for TikTok in New York on February 25, 2020. A former executive of Chinese company ByteDance, which owns the popular short-video app TikTok, says in a legal filing that some members of the ruling Communist Party used data held by the company to identify and trace protesters in Hong Kong. used. (AP Photo/File)
The Associated Press
TikTok plans to pour “billions of dollars” into Southeast Asia over the next few years, aiming to grow in one of its biggest markets amid scrutiny in the US.
The company’s CEO Shou Zi Chew made the announcement on Thursday during a speech at a TikTok forum in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta.
The investment comes as the app’s e-commerce marketplace, TikTok Shop, is experiencing some growth following its expansion into more countries in the region last year. But it still lags behind more established power players, such as online shopping sites Shopee and Lazada.
The popular video-sharing app, however, is trying to harness the power of its user base. Chew said on Thursday that the app generates more than 325 million visitors in Southeast Asia every month. And research group Insider Intelligence expects its user base to grow by more than 10% this year in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam and the Philippines.
TikTok did not provide details on how it plans to spend its investment. But Chew said the company would provide training and support to small and medium-sized businesses. He also said that TikTok would help “drive youth entrepreneurship” in partnership with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN – an organization of 10 member states in Southeast Asia.
Chew said TikTok has 8,000 employees in Southeast Asia and 2 million Indonesian sellers who sell products on the app.
