Zero to $12bn
TikTok is on track to reel in $12bn in advertising revenue this year, according to new reports from people familiar with the company's financials.
When compared to the established big players in digital ads, namely Google and Facebook, that's small potatoes — Google Search alone brought in almost $150bn last year, and Facebook did more than $110bn.
But when you compare where TikTok is on its journey, having been founded in just 2016, the company's progress is remarkable. If those reports prove accurate, Tiktok will have broken the $10bn a year mark in just its sixth full year — a milestone that took Facebook more than a decade. YouTube took 14 years. Snapchat and Twitter? They're both barely halfway to that milestone.
What's more remarkable is that TikTok's parent company, Bytedance, which owns a number of other social media and tech assets in China, is on an even steeper trajectory. Bytedance reportedly made $34bn last year, less than a decade since it was founded.
