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ByteDance's 2025 net income could fall by as much as 70% due to heavy AI spending. Since ByteDance has not published its financial statements, the South China Morning Post estimates that, when compared with a net profit of about $33 billion in 2024 (according to The Information), the company's 2025 profit could be around $10 billion. Illustration photo. Chinese media reported that ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok and Douyin, posted net income for 2025 down more than 70% due to heavy AI spending. Notably, overseas revenue rose nearly 50%, significantly higher than the roughly 20% growth in China, according to Securities Times and 36Kr citing sources familiar with the matter. For the first time, international revenue accounted for more than 30% of the group’s total revenue, up from 25% in 2024. ByteDance's growth was driven mainly by TikTok Shop, with gross merchandise value (GMV) up nearly 70% in the past year. Notably, Li Liang, Vice President of the Douyin division, said that the profit decline was calculated under international accounting standards, which include employee stock option costs, so “it does not fully reflect the core operating performance.” He said that excluding this cost, the company’s revenue and profit still maintain growth momentum. According to him, operating margin in the second half of 2025 would only “slightly” decrease, mainly due to slower Douyin e-commerce growth, while the company continues to increase investment in new areas. Because ByteDance has not published its financial statements, the South China Morning Post estimates that, comparing with a net profit of around $33 billion in 2024 (per The Information), 2025 profit could be around $10 billion. The past year marked a phase of ByteDance's heavy investment in artificial intelligence (AI). In December last year, the South China Morning Post reported that the company planned to spend about 100 billion yuan to buy Nvidia chips this year, up from about 85 billion yuan of the previous year. Along with that, the company also accelerated the race to attract top AI talent. According to LatePost, Guo Daya, a leading researcher behind DeepSeek's R1 model, joined ByteDance's Seed AI development team. Also joining were notable figures such as Wu Yonghui, a Google veteran with 17 years, and Zhou Chang, who participated in developing Alibaba Group Holding's large language model Qwen. The acceleration of AI investment is beginning to yield initial results, helping ByteDance gradually strengthen its position in the global tech race. The company's Seedance 2.0 video model is considered one of the strongest systems today. However, this technology has also sparked controversy as many major Hollywood studios, such as Walt Disney Studios and Paramount Pictures, accuse ByteDance of infringing intellectual property. The company says it will tighten content-protection measures. Earlier this month, ByteDance established a new joint venture in the United States to maintain a presence in one of the key markets. Under the ownership structure, ByteDance holds 19.9% of the joint venture, while Oracle, Silver Lake and MGX each hold 15%. The remainder, 30.1%, belongs to affiliates of ByteDance’s existing investors.
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