ByteDance co-founder Liang Rubo sent a memo to staff on Tuesday, outlining a major reshuffle at the Beijing-based company to create six business units (BUs), Reuters reported.
ByteDance will be reorganised into six units – TikTok and its Chinese version Douyin, work collaboration unit Lark, business services unit BytePlus, gaming unit Nuverse, and education tech unit Dali Education, Liang said in the memo.
The TikTok unit will support operations of the short video app and its expansion into areas such as global e-commerce.
ByteDance’s Chinese products, including Douyin, news aggregator Toutiao, video-streaming platform Xigua, will be folded into the Douyin unit, which will take over all “information and service” operations in the Chinese market.
The bulk of ByteDance revenue, totalling $34.3 billion in 2020, was generated in China.
Dali, which has undergone layoffs and product closures after China issued rules barring curriculum-based tutoring for profit, would provide services for education stakeholders such as artificial intelligence-powered learning, education for adults and smart hardware.
TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew to step down
TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew will step down. Its parent ByteDance’s chief financial officer (CFO) will focus on running the short video platform full time.
This is the biggest organizational change since ByteDance co-founder Zhang Yiming said in May he would step down as CEO. Zhang remains chairman and has more than 50 percent of voting rights. Liang will officially take over from Zhang as CEO in December.
Chew’s shift comes after ByteDance said in April that it did not have any imminent plans for an IPO. It had been looking at a Hong Kong or New York listing. ByteDance had a valuation of about $300 billion in recent trades.
Chew joined ByteDance as CFO in March and was appointed as TikTok CEO in May. Liang did not elaborate on replacement plans for the CFO role.
