Walmart Joining Microsoft in TikTok Bid

Credit: Adweek/Walmart/Microsoft/TikTok

Walmart is pursuing yet another avenue of business diversification.

As part of its efforts to assuage the Trump administration’s accusations of selling US user data to the Chinese government, Chinese tech company ByteDance is currently in ongoing discussions with several potential buyers for the US, Canadian, Australian and New Zealand operations of its social media platform, TikTok. The most prolific of these prospective buyers is American tech giant Microsoft, but according to a recent announcement, Microsoft is no longer going at it alone.


Retail giant Walmart told CNBC yesterday that it is planning to join forces with Microsoft in pursuit of the TikTok deal. Experts suspect that this pursuit is another of Walmart’s attempts to expand and diversify its business in order to compete with Amazon. Walmart recently announced that it will soon release Walmart+, a membership program in a similar vein to Amazon Prime. In their statements on the TikTok deal, Walmart representatives mentioned that the e-commerce and advertising opportunities offered to and by prolific users of TikTok could prove beneficial to both users and owners.

“We believe a potential relationship with TikTok US in partnership with Microsoft could add this key functionality and provide Walmart with an important way for us to reach and serve omnichannel customers as well as grow our third-party marketplace and advertising businesses,” Walmart’s statement said. “We are confident that a Walmart and Microsoft partnership would meet both the expectations of US TikTok users while satisfying the concerns of US government regulators.”

Credit: Drew Angerer/Getty Images

TikTok currently has approximately 100 million active users in the US alone. Acquiring the platform would give both Walmart and Microsoft access to a massive potential customer base, though it has not yet been divulged which company would be the majority stakeholder should the deal go through.

Daniel Ives, managing director and technology analyst at Wedbush Securities, described the potential benefits the acquisition of TikTok could have for Walmart in their war on Amazon. “When you think right now about going up against the 800-pound gorilla, Amazon, obviously they’ve been behind the eight ball,” he said. “But Walmart could use this as a golden opportunity to partner with Microsoft and monetize the TikTok base, which could start to rival Instagram in the next few years just given its global presence.”

TikTok has not yet selected a buyer, but a decision is expected in the very near future.

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