Tiktok’s Chinese rival emerges from obscurity

(The author is a columnist for Reuters Breakingviews. The opinions expressed are their own.)

HONG KONG (Reuters Breakingviews) – Kuaishou Technologies could emerge from the shadow of its big rival ByteDance. China’s $ 50 billion short video streaming app has been stuck in a regulatory storm since its IPO in February, with stocks losing about two-thirds of their value, but signs of improvement are appearing.

After declining throughout the year, daily active users topped 300 million in the third quarter. Users are also spending more time browsing. A 77% gain in advertising revenue, the main source of income, was a pleasant surprise given that the post had dried up for private company ByteDance, according to Chinese state media citing sources who attended a internal company meeting.

Part of the lift may be temporary. Kuaishou won the broadcast rights to the Tokyo Olympics, resulting in 73 billion clicks on related content. But some of its expensive overseas operations are progressing well. Its enterprise value is trading at 2.9 times expected sales after a rich start, per Refinitiv. That’s half the ratio of little rival Bilibili. (By Yawen Chen)

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(Edited by Una Galani and Katrina Hamlin)

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