TikTok-owner ByteDance clocks first-ever profit in India

Chinese conglomerate ByteDance that owns popular short video-sharing app TikTok has finally been able to clock profit in India. In the financial year 2019, ByteDance registered Rs 43.7 crore in revenue and Rs 3.4 crore in net profit in India, reports Inc42.com. With over 200 million users, India is the biggest market for TikTok, where it has also courted several controversies over the past few months.

ByteDance recently announced to set up a data centre in India.

"As a testimony to ByteDance`s recognition of India`s efforts to frame a new data protection legislation, we taking a significant step towards establishing a data centre in India," said the startup, which also owns the social media platform Helo.

"We are now in the process of examining options for safe, secure and reliable services for our Indian users within Indian borders," it said.

It may take ByteDance 6-18 months to set up the data centre at a cost of $100 million. The investment will be part of the company`s commitment to invest $1 billion in India over three years.

"Since the launch of our platforms in India, we have stored our Indian users` data at industry-leading third-party data centres in the US and Singapore. We believe the time has come to take the next big leap," the company added.

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ByteDance now has a portfolio of applications available in over 150 markets and 75 languages.

The company on October 28 denied reports that it plans to go public in Hong Kong as early as the first quarter of next year.

The Financial Times reported that ByteDance, which was founded in 2012 and is backed by investors including SoftBank, is preparing for a public listing.