40% Conversion Rate Bump from AR?

If you haven’t heard of Tiktok, it’s a Chinese-owned social video-sharing app that launched in 2016 as Musical.ly.

In 2017 Bytedance, the current owner of the app purchased Musical.ly for a reported one billion dollars.

The reason the name has been making headlines the past few months is because the Trump administration became concerned that such a popular app (>150m monthly active US users, 800m globally) was operated by a Chinese company and therefore required to comply with the CCP and share user data with their government.

Initially, it was thought the app was going to get banned outright, then we heard there was a second option, a directive for ByteDance to divest its TikTok operations in the US. In other words, find a US company to acquire a stake in its US assets and control the data of US users locally. 

There were rumors of potential partners including Twitter, Microsoft, Facebook, and even Google however, currently, the preferred partner is a joint effort between Walmart and Oracle. 

As it stands, Walmart and Oracle plan to purchase a 7.5% and 12.5% stake in the business respectively.  

Why this matters is because Walmart is aggressively trying to expand its online presence, something that could be seen as an opportunity for any retail brand looking for a spot on its marketplace.

With this investment, they would not only become the exclusive payment and e-commerce partner with TikTok, but it would also “provide Walmart with an important way to expand our reach and serve omnichannel customers as well as grow their third-party marketplace, fulfillment and advertising businesses.” (from this statement on their website). 

This sounds great on paper but Walmart has a track record of, at best, moderately successful acquisitions and partnership integrations including Vudu, Flipkart, and Jet.com. 

What do you think? Will this “front-row seat” to the next generation of consumers pay off? 

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