Tiktok has become the world's largest unicorn company, worth 1.56 trillion yuan
2024 Global Unicorn Chart Released
ByteDance has won the first place in the global unicorn list for three consecutive years.
Unicorn companies refer to unlisted companies that have been established for less than 10 years and are valued at over $1 billion. These companies often have unique business models and insurmountable competitive barriers, with huge market potential.
Recently, Hurun Research Institute released the 2024 Global Unicorn List, which lists non listed companies with a value of over 1 billion US dollars established globally after 2000. It is understood that the valuation calculation deadline for this ranking is January 1, 2024, which is the sixth time that Hurun Research Institute has released the Global Unicorn List.
In the past year, 171 new unicorn companies have emerged globally, including 56 in China.
Among the top 10 unicorns in 2024, ByteDance, founded in 2012, has become the world's most valuable unicorn for the third consecutive year with a value of 1.56 trillion yuan. SpaceX in the aerospace industry ranks second with a valuation of 1280 billion yuan. OpenAI in the field of artificial intelligence, with a value of 710 billion yuan, ranks among the top three in the world, up 14 places from the previous year's list, and has become the fastest growing unicorn enterprise with a value growth rate of nearly 570 billion yuan in one year.
Source: Hurun Baifu official account
Hurun, chairman and chief research officer of Hurun Baifu, said: "Eight unicorn companies have entered the Hurun Global 500, becoming one of the world's most valuable 500 companies: ByteDance, SpaceX, Shein, Stripe, WeBank, Databricks, OpenAI and Ant Group."
It is worth mentioning that Zhang Yiming, the founder of ByteDance, ranked fourth in China with 245 billion yuan in the Hurun 2024 Global Rich List released by Hurun in March this year.
Top 20 China Rich List Image Source: Hurun Research Institute
ByteDance has become the world's largest unicorn company for three consecutive years. It is not without trace. Looking back to 2023, the development of Tiktok Group is obvious to all in the market.
Tiktok develops rapidly
Byte's growth is indeed very fast.
Previously, according to media reports, the total revenue of ByteDance achieved a double-digit growth in 2023, exceeding 700 billion yuan, mainly from domestic advertising and e-commerce. The accuracy of this data is unknown, and ByteDance has not responded. However, this estimated revenue data has surpassed social media platforms such as Tencent and Facebook, approaching Meta.
In addition, according to market news, the number of daily active users of Tiktok has exceeded 800 million, which is second only to WeChat as a nationwide application; In 2023, the GMV of Tiktok E-commerce will exceed 2.2 trillion yuan, with an increase of nearly 40%. Data shows that in 2023, the business of Tiktok shelf scenarios will grow at a high speed, and the GMV of the mall will grow by 277% year on year.
Tiktok E-commerce will perform well in 2023. In 2024, Tiktok E-commerce will keep going and strive to achieve new breakthroughs and growth. According to late reports, Tiktok E-commerce has set a target of total transaction volume (GMV) of more than 3 trillion yuan in 2024. At the same time, Tiktok E-commerce announced that it will take "price power" as its highest priority task in 2024, and become another e-commerce platform with a clear low price strategy after Pinduoduo, Ali and JD.
In the e-commerce industry, low prices are a proven weapon, but in today's more rational and autonomous consumer society, users have also put forward higher requirements for the consumer experience.
In March this year, Tiktok E-commerce launched an app called "Tiktok Mall", which is the first time Tiktok launched a comprehensive independent e-commerce platform. It is understood that Tiktok Mall is an e-commerce shopping app that can provide users with services such as browsing, searching, purchasing goods or services, logistics query, publishing comments, and sharing goods.
Image source: Application market
According to market analysts, the launch of Tiktok Mall APP means that its e-commerce business will enter a more refined stage.
Later, Tiktok also adjusted the threshold for opening videos or bringing goods with pictures and texts on personal accounts. In the past, if you wanted to carry out videos or bringing goods with pictures and texts on Tiktok, your personal account must have at least 1000 fans. Now, only 500 effective fans are needed. Tiktok has greatly reduced the threshold for carrying goods, intended to enrich the e-commerce ecosystem and attract more businesses and users to join.
Source: Tiktok E-commerce Rules Center
The overseas layout of Tiktok e-commerce should not be underestimated. When domestic market competition intensifies, seeking incremental growth overseas has become a choice for many giants. Overseas, TikTok e-commerce has already emerged. At present, TikTok Shop has entered markets such as Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, Singapore, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
This year, market news reported that TikTok's GMV target for e-commerce in 2024 is $50 billion, more than double the $20 billion in 2023. In March, TikTok e-commerce also experienced new personnel changes. According to 36 Krypton, Mu Qing, vice president of Tiktok E-commerce, is about to transfer to TikTok E-commerce to take charge of non clothing operations in cross-border e-commerce.
Industry insiders said that Muqing's adjustment meant that Tiktok was trying to combine the experience of domestic e-commerce business with TikTok's e-commerce business. This adjustment may bring greater help to Tiktok's overseas market business.
The development of Tiktok Group is obvious to all, but this does not mean that the development of Tiktok Group has no challenge.
In January this year, ByteDance held the 2024 annual general meeting, at which Liang Rubo, CEO of ByteDance, mentioned the "sense of crisis" many times. He mentioned that the biggest sense of crisis is the concern that ByteDance, as an organization, is becoming mediocre and unable to make new breakthroughs.
Liang Rubo mentioned that he has discovered a trend of mediocrity in multiple organizations of the company, including inefficiency, sluggishness, and low standards. He mentioned that with the rapid expansion of ByteDance, the number of employees has increased from more than 10000 to more than 100000, and the company's organizational efficiency has become low. Also, ByteDance has become slower and less sensitive to opportunities than startups. The last concern mentioned by Liang Rupo is that the company's standards are being lowered.
So it seems that Tiktok Group has created a sense of crisis and has been constantly rethinking.
Indeed, half a year to one year is enough for an enterprise to go from industry benchmark to death. In the future, the huge Tiktok Group can only adapt to the changing market and consolidate its leading position in the industry by constantly changing and innovating and maintaining a sense of crisis.
Tiktok enlarged layout AI
On the path of progress, only by finding the right direction can we better exert our efforts. 2023 is known as the Year of the Big Model, and during this year, AI has penetrated into various industries and its application in different fields has become increasingly widespread.
In 2024, AI will continue to erupt, and no Internet giant will let go of this new outlet. According to forecast data, the expenditure scale of China's artificial intelligence market will increase to 14.75 billion US dollars in 2023, accounting for about one tenth of the global total scale. It will increase to 26.44 billion US dollars in 2026, and the compound growth rate from 2021 to 2026 will exceed 20%.
Tiktok Group attaches great importance to the layout of AI large models. From last year to the present, Tiktok Group has continuously increased its investment in the AI track, trying to bring new development opportunities to the company.
In February 2023, Tiktok Group began to set up a large model team, which mainly focuses on language and image. In June, Volcano Engine released a large model service platform - Volcano Ark. At the same time, Tiktok has tested an AI dialogue product "Grace", which is the predecessor of AI dialogue app "Doubao" later launched. In August, Tiktok's lark model was put on record through the first batch of Interim Measures for the Management of Generative Artificial Intelligence Services and opened to the public.
At the end of last year, Tiktok carried out a series of business and structural adjustments and established a new AI department - Flow. It is understood that the current technical leader of the Flow department is Hong Dingkun, the vice president of group technology, and the business leader is Zhu Wenjia, the head of the big model team.
Flow is responsible for the AI innovation business of Tiktok. In addition to the already launched Doubao and Cici, there are also many AI related innovation products incubating. At present, Tiktok has launched several independent AI chat robot products, including Doubao, Goku, Cici and ChitChop. Tiktok's products such as Today's Headlines, Clips and Flickers are also focusing on integrating AI technology to promote the upgrading of user experience.
In fact, increasing the layout of AI has become an industry consensus. Taking Alibaba as an example, since the second half of last year, it has increased investment in the field of big model related industries. There are currently 5 large model companies in China with a valuation of 1 billion US dollars, namely Moon Darkness, Zhipu AI, Minmax, Zero One Universe, and Baichuan Intelligence. Among these 5 large model unicorn companies, Alibaba did not fall behind, with a participation rate of 100%.
In general, it is a firm fact that Tiktok Group actively embraces AI. With the accelerated deployment of Tiktok in AI technology, the development of the company will also face a series of changes. In the future, what kind of chemical reaction will be produced by the combination of Tiktok Group and AI? Let's wait and see.
