ByteDance Buyback Values TikTok Owner Above $330 Billion After 25% Sales Jump

ByteDance plans to launch a fresh employee share buyback that prices its stock at US$200.41, lifting the privately held firm’s implied valuation to more than US$330 billion, according to people familiar with the matter. The new price is 5.5% higher than the offer made six months ago, when the owner of TikTok was valued at roughly US$315 billion. The programme, expected to open in the autumn, will allow existing employees to cash out a portion of their holdings. The higher valuation follows another quarter of rapid expansion. ByteDance’s second-quarter revenue rose 25% from a year earlier to about US$48 billion, the sources said, after topping US$43 billion in the first quarter. Those figures put the Beijing-based company ahead of Facebook and Instagram parent Meta Platforms, which generated US$42.3 billion in the first quarter. While the group remains profitable overall, TikTok’s U.S. operation continues to run at a loss. Regular buybacks have become a cornerstone of ByteDance’s capital strategy, providing liquidity to staff while underscoring a balance sheet strong enough to fund the transactions internally—an approach that contrasts with other late-stage startups that rely on outside investors. The latest round could help shore up morale amid uncertainty surrounding the short-video app’s future in the United States. Washington is pressing ByteDance to divest TikTok’s American assets over national-security concerns. Congress has set a deadline of 19 Jan. 2025 for a sale, and President Donald Trump recently extended an interim cut-off to 17 Sept. 2025 while talks continue with a consortium of U.S. investors. Analysts say those regulatory risks help explain why ByteDance’s valuation remains below one-fifth of Meta’s roughly US$1.9 trillion market capitalisation despite the Chinese company’s faster revenue growth.