HONG KONG: Byte­Dance, the owner of short-video app TikTok, is set to launch a new employee share buyback that will value the Chinese technology giant at more than $330 billion, driven by continued revenue growth.

The company plans to offer current employees $200.41 per share in the repurchase programme, up 5.5 per cent from $189.90 each it offered them about six months ago which valued ByteDance at roughly $315bn.

The buyback is expected to be launched in the autumn.

The latest buyback at a higher valuation will come as ByteDance consolidates its position as the world’s largest social media company by revenue, with its second-quarter revenue up 25pc year-on-year.

That jump resulted in the company’s second-quarter revenue hitting about $48bn, most of which is from the Chinese market as it continues to face political pressure to divest its United States arm.

Biggest social media firm

In the first quarter, ByteDance’s revenue rose to more than $43bn, making it the world’s number one social media company by sales, topping Facebook and Instagram owner Meta’s $42.3bn in that period.

Both firms maintained sales growth above 20pc in the second quarter, helped by robust advertising demand.

ByteDance’s bi-annual buybacks allow employees of the privately held company to cash out some holdings and reflect a balance sheet strengthened by its expanding domestic and international businesses.

It is increasingly common for late-stage private companies to conduct regular buybacks to retain and provide liquidity to employees without an exit such as an initial public offering.

Many, including SpaceX and OpenAI, use external investor capital to fund these programmes. ByteDance has been an outlier, steadily using its own balance sheet in a signal of financial flexibility and healthy margins. ByteDance is also widely regarded as one of China’s artificial intelligence leaders, having invested billions of dollars in buying Nvidia chips, building AI-related infrastructure and developing its models.

TikTok sale

Despite outpacing Meta on revenue this year, ByteDance’s valuation remains less than a fifth of Meta’s roughly $1.9tr market capitalisation — a gap analysts attribute largely to political and regulatory risks in the US.

ByteDance faces intense pressure in Washington, where lawmakers have raised national security concerns over its Chinese ownership.

Congress last year passed a law requiring ByteDance to divest TikTok’s US assets by Jan 19 this year or face a nationwide ban of the app, which has 170 million US users. President Donald Trump has granted TikTok multiple reprieves and last week extended the deadline for the company to divest its US assets to Sept 17.

Some lawmakers have criticised the delay, arguing his administration is flouting the law and ignoring national security concerns related to Chinese control over TikTok. ByteDance is profitable as a company, but TikTok’s US business has been loss-making.

If the sale of TikTok’s US business is finalised, it is expected to be owned by a joint venture formed by an American investor consortium and ByteDance, which will maintain a minority stake.

Published in Dawn, August 28th, 2025