TikTok has filed the financial results for its European/international business for FY 2022 (ending December 31).
The filing, published on UK Companies House by TikTok Information Technologies UK Ltd, reveals turnover of USD $2.618 billion in the 12 months.
That FY turnover represented growth of 164.3% YoY, up from USD $990.46 million in 2021.
The filing is for a group of companies comprised of parent company TikTok Information Technologies UK Ltd. and its subsidiaries.
TikTok Information Technologies UK Ltd owns TikTok’s business across the UK and the EU, plus Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, and Switzerland.
In addition, it collects revenues from TikTok operations in South and Central America (exclusively via Brazil and Mexico), and a handful of other territories.
TikTok Information Technologies UK Ltd. is a separate entity to TikTok’s operating companies in the US (TikTok Inc via TikTok LLC), Australia/New Zealand (TikTok Australia Pty Ltd), and Singapore (TikTok Pte Ltd, which owns TikTok’s operating entities in India and South-East Asia).
TikTok’s sister platform in China, Douyin, is also owned and operated separately.
As you can see from the graph below, TikTok’s UK and EU revenues combined in 2022 (excluding Latin America and ‘Rest of World’) were $2.05 billion.
That was more than double the equivalent figure from 2021 ($811m).
Within the new filing, TikTok Information Technologies UK Ltd reveals a 2022 annual operating loss of $512 million, a narrowing on the $895 million operating loss it posted in the prior year (see below).
The company recorded a negative operating margin of 19.6% in 2022, compared to a negative operating margin of 90.4% in the prior year.
According to TikTok, its operating loss margin “has increased significantly when compared to 2021,” due to “a combination of an increasing revenue driven by user base growth and a policy optimizing cost efficiencies and reducing overall spending of the group throughout the year”.
The company reported in February that it has amassed over 150 million users in Europe.
TikTok reports that its average monthly number of employees across the companies within the Group increased from 4,396 in 2021 to 7,009 in 2022 “to support the continued growth of the business”.
Elsewhere in the new filing, TikTok reveals that its European/international businesses combined generated $1.652 billion in advertising revenue in 2022, slightly more than double the $802.3 million generated in the prior year (see below).
The platform’s live-streaming revenues across its European and international subsidiaries, meanwhile, reached $790.1 million in 2022, versus $151.3 million in 2021.
Digging deeper into the numbers, and breaking them down geographically, we can see that in the UK, TikTok generated $565.3 million, an increase of $286.1 million versus the $279.2 million reported for 2021.
In the European Union, TikTok’s turnover was $1.485 billion, versus $531.7 million in 2021.
In Latin America, the company’s turnover, derived from its Mexican and Brazilian subsidiaries, reached $218 million, an increase of $135.6 million compared to $82.4 million in the prior year.
In TikTok’s ‘Rest of World’ market segment, the company’s turnover was $348.8 million in 2022. In 2022, TikTok turned over $96.9 million in ‘Rest of World’.
Elsewhere in the filing, the company notes that long-time ByteDance Executive, and the company’s former Vice President, Tian Zhao, resigned as a Director in July 2023.
Adam Presser, TikTok’s Los Angeles-based Head of Operations, was then appointed as a Director of TikTok Information Technologies UK Ltd. that same month, according to the filing.
Within the filing, TikTok notes that its business faces various risks and uncertainties.
Under compliance risks, the company says that “it is subject to a range of new and existing rules in a regulatory landscape that is continually changing”.
“[Our] userbase and users’ level of engagement are crucial to the continued growth of our business.”
TikTok Information Technologies UK Ltd
In the section dedicated to operational risks, TikTok says that the size of its “userbase and users’ level of engagement are crucial to the continued growth of our business, which continues to be significantly determined by our ability to retain our existing users and attract new users in a cost-efficient manner while also continuing to attract cultivate and retain content creators contribute content”.
TikTok adds in the filing that it faces competition “from companies that operate content-based social platforms and companies that sell advertising to businesses looking to reach consumers” and that it needs “to continue to innovate and provide services that are useful to users to remain competitive”.Music Business Worldwide
