TikTok owner ByteDance saw its total revenue grow by 70 percent year-on-year to around $58 billion in 2021, according to two people familiar with the matter, slower growth than a year earlier as China tightens its regulation of big tech companies.

The figures were disclosed to a small group of employees at an internal meeting of the social media giant this week, according to the people.

In 2020, the Beijing-based company’s total revenue grew by over 100 percent to $34.3 billion, Reuters has reported.

ByteDance did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Chinese tech companies from Tencent to Alibaba have reported slowing growth amid a wide-ranging crackdown by the country’s regulators who have rolled out new rules governing how they operate and interact with their users.

ByteDance retained its second-ranked position in China’s online advertising market last year, with a market share of 21 percent, according to a recent report published by researcher Interactive Marketing Lab Zhongguancun.

The number one position was still held by e-commerce giant Alibaba Group, and third place went to gaming giant Tencent Holdings, according to the report.

The overall growth of online ad sales in China declined to 9.3 percent in 2021 from 13.8 percent a year earlier, the report says.

Tech news website The Information last November reported that ByteDance’s 2021 revenue was on track to rise about 60 percent to 400 billion yuan ($63.07 billion).

ByteDance is one of the world’s biggest private tech companies with recent trades in the private-equity secondary market valuing it at about $300 billion, Reuters has reported.

Following Beijing’s antitrust efforts, ByteDance has recently been downsizing its powerful investment arm.

In November, ByteDance reorganised itself into six business units in its biggest organisational change since ByteDance founder Zhang Yiming said in May he would step down as chief executive.

Besides TikTok, ByteDance’s other apps include its Chinese equivalent Douyin, news aggregator Jinri Toutiao and video-streaming platform Xigua.

In 2021, users spent approximately $2.3 billion in TikTok and the iOS version of Douyin, a 77 percent jump year-over-year, according to app tracker Sensor Tower.

By Yingzhi Yang and Xie Yu; Editors: Brenda Goh and Elaine Hardcastle

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