American retail giant Walmart also confirmed its interest in buying the video sharing app TikTok. Reportedly it will be joining Microsoft for the acquisition of TikTok while some other tech giants including Oracle are also in pursuit. However, media reported the alliance of Walmart and Microsoft as stronger than the others to win the 30 million USD deal with Chinese tech giant ByteDance.
President Trump gave TikTok an ultimatum of 90 days to find an American owner and cut all ties with ByteDance. Reportedly the short-form video app is getting closer to sell its business in the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand but it is yet to select a buyer yet.
How Walmart Fits In The Acquisition Of TikTok?
Reportedly Walmart is all set to compete with Amazon with a subscription service. It has planned to launch Walmart+ which will be a similar streaming platform like Amazon Prime including original movies, and TV shows.
The retail giant stated that they were impressed by TikTok’s integration of e-commerce with advertising which clearly benefits both users and content creators. However, it did not reveal how it would use TikTok app or whether it will be part of Walmart+.
The American team of TikTok approves that Walmart’s partnership with Microsoft could allow them to serve omnichannel customers.
It could help grow TikTok’s third party marketplace and advertising businesses at the same time. If the deal is approved, hundreds of millions of consumers could buy Walmart and Microsoft’s products after watching videos. According to latest reports, TikTok’s monthly active American users have reached 100 million which is an 800% increase from 2 years ago.
How Walmart Can Benefit from TikTok
A majority of the consumers also love the idea of video-based commerce which is increasingly getting popular on TikTok. Few examples are shared below.
It is obviously impossible to topple Amazon so quickly but Walmart could use this golden opportunity to circulate videos of their stores and products easily among masses. The retail giant has also signed a cloud technology deal with Microsoft 2 years ago which included Azure infrastructure and Office 365 applications.
Reaction From The Community
Many pop-culture enthusiasts are confident about the success of this deal. Perhaps this deal serves consumers more than it serves the giants involved in buying TikTok. Consumer-focused content like haul videos which were extremely popular on YouTube and Instagram were also getting popular on TikTok.
The sole news of Walmart’s acquisition of TikTok raised its stock by 5% and brought its total market capitalization to 387 Billion USD. Walmart has surprised many experts with this decision as it is not a humongous tech giant like Apple that recently doubled its market capitalization from 2018. Yet, it wants to enter the tech industry which apparently stock market approves. This kind of rise is rare for Walmart.
Some critics have changed their minds by labelling this move as an evolution of eCommerce, considering the big names in charge of running the show.
Some supporters of this deal want Walmart to upload this video shot at one their stores.
