Why TikTok wants to invest $1 billion in India?

By Pickle  July 25, 2019

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TikTok, which has emerged as the favourite video sharing platform of Indians despite restrictions from the government and the court, has announced its decision to set up a data centre in India.

TikTok, a rage among youngsters across India, has emerged as a major competitor for YouTube and Facebook videos. With people in India finding it much easier to upload and work with TikTok, it is little wonder why this first Chinese product, which has been successful globally beyond China, wants to make inroads into a huge market like India.

According to a statement from TikTok’s parent company, the China-based ByteDance, “India is one of our strongest markets and we are happy to be part of the mainframe of Digital India in 15 languages. Since the launch of our platforms in India, we have stored the data of our Indian users at industry-leading third party data centres in the US and Singapore…We now believe the time has come to take the next big leap.”

It said: “As a testimony to ByteDance’s recognition of India’s efforts to frame a new data protection legislation, we are taking a significant step towards establishing a data centre in India.”

ByteDance, which also owns the social media platform Helo, added: “We are now in the process of examining options for safe, secure and reliable services for our Indian users within Indian borders.”

The data centre plan is part of the $1 billion ByteDance has recently committed to the Indian market over the next three years. So, why is TikTok is so keen about investing more in India? Sample this: According to a new report from Sensor Tower, a mobile app intelligence firm, users spending on short video-sharing app TikTok reached $10.8 million last month from $1.6 million in June 2018, recording a year-over-year growth of 588 percent.

Also, spending in the app increased 19 per cent month-over-month from $9 million in May. Though growth in spending was driven by users in China, India is TikTok’s largest market where it seeks to make significant returns in the future.

And with its decision to set up data centre in India itself, it looks like TikTok is ready to provide its answers to allegations like it is “anti-national” for its “close relationship” with the Chinese government and it is a “hub” of anti-national content.