TikTok’s Chinese Twin Logs Gangbuster Growth in E-Commerce

ByteDance Ltd. saw growth surge in its fledging e-commerce business last year on the back of an expanding base of shoppers on its video-sharing platform Douyin, as its competition with domestic rival Kuaishou heats up.

The Chinese domestic sibling of TikTok reported that the gross merchandise value (GMV) from e-commerce transactions leapt 320% in 2021 as the number of customers on the platform rose 69%, according to statistics disclosed at a company event Tuesday. GMV is a metric used to measure the total value of goods sold over a certain period of time on a platform.