Specialist
Former Manager at Beijing Bytedance Technology Co Ltd
Agenda
- TikTok’s daily active users in Europe, the US, Japan, Korea and Southeast Asia – annual and monthly growth trends, plus user duration
- Operating models and strategies, content development and penetration, plus costs
- Policy risks in India and the US, countermeasures and future challenges
- TikTok’s overseas business model, major revenue sources and growth trends
Questions
1.
Can you give us a recap of TikTok’s foray into the global market after its acquisition of Musical.ly? As of 2018, TikTok had already entered over 150 countries worldwide; the combined downloads raked in by Douyin and TikTok had exceeded one billion, with MAU topping 500 million globally. How do the team for Douyin in China and those for TikTok in other countries differ in terms of organisational structure? What are the business structure and operating model of TikTok like?
2.
What are the considerations behind TikTok’s decision to enter a country at a particular time? How did it plan its foray into new markets? How do its go-to-market and growth strategies differ for different countries vary?
3.
You mentioned S- and A-grade markets. How does TikTok rate different markets? Which regions are its S- grade markets and which A-grade? What stages did TikTok go through before amassing large numbers of users in these markets? What are TikTok’s operational or growth strategies for different development stages?
4.
TikTok faced the risk of being banned in India and Indonesia previously. More recently, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States opened a national security review of the acquisition of Musical.ly by TikTok’s owner ByteDance. It seems that it has been continuously beset by such problems. What do you think of the overall regulatory risk TikTok faces? How is TikTok coping with such risks in regions where it has set up a GR department and those where it hasn’t? What is the worst-case scenario it could possibly face?
5.
Can you talk about TikTok’s content review mechanism? How does it work? What are its costs and benefits? What is the investment trend?
6.
How does TikTok invest in the creation of top content? It seems to have many reviewers, but can you talk about its investments and trends in content production and review respectively?
7.
What is TikTok’s DAU and its change trend in 2018-19 in its major S-grade and A-grade markets? What is the change trend of the operational metrics such as user duration and day 1 retention?
8.
Can you talk about the marketing expenses of TikTok and other short video platforms overseas, including the user acquisition costs of their content operations team and their advertising spend? What is the change of user acquisition costs in different regions this year?
9.
Instagram introduced a new product called Reels in Brazil. Could you tell us about TikTok’s major competitors and core competencies?
10.
Do TikTok and Douyin have the same technologies of algorithm and optimisation? Does TikTok have improvement and implement of localisation? Could you tell us about the risks for users’ privacy brought by recommendation algorithm that Douyin and Jinri Toutiao do well in? Will TikTok’s advantages become obstructions someday?
11.
Could you tell us about TikTok’s monetisation methods and commercialisation? What about the percentages TikTok’s revenue takes up of the total revenue of Douyin and the growth trend of TikTok’s monetisation?
12.
Will TikTok promote its live-streaming activities?
13.
What do you think of TikTok’s attraction to domestic and overseas advertisers? A specialist said that TikTok needs to spend about RMB 70m-80m on overseas advertising for a year. What can TikTok do to compete with international leading advertising platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Google?
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