The case is about TikTok, a short-format video hosting service owned by Chinese internet technology company ByteDance (ByteDance), and Its success story in the global markets. TikTok was launched in 2017 and it soon gained prominence, attracting hundreds of millions of users to its platform. Its success was attributed to its user friendly interface and entertaining content. The app provided users with several tools and filters to make short-format videos of about 15 seconds to 60 seconds. TikTok was hugely successful, becoming the world's most downloaded app with 850 million downloads in 2020 and more than 3 billion app downloads by the first quarter of 2022
Also, it was the first app not owned by American multinational technology conglomerate Meta Platforms Inc. (Meta), to reach that milestone.
TIkTok's phenomenal growth was attributed to its Artificial Intelligence (AI)-powered algorithms which could determine a user's area of interest with great accuracy in no time. Most users used TikTok more than TV, podcasts, or other social networking apps. The app was a hit with Gen 2 as they used TikTok to watch news and clips of popular television shows such as Game of Thrones.
Under TikTok's business model, the app monetized through advertising revenues, music distribution, game publishing, and in-app purchases, Marketers also benefited by placing ads seamlessly on TikTok similar to the videos posted by the users. TikTok showed these ads to users after analyzig their consumer behavior and most often, the users, especially if they belonged to Gen Z, purchased the product on the platform.
Explain how ByteDance may have used International Research to its advantage in order to successfully compete in the market for social media apps.