TikTok is close to sealing a deal that will sell its North American, Australian, and New Zealand assets. Although Oracle and Microsoft were initially the frontrunners in the bid, Walmart has surprisingly announced a joint effort with Microsoft to buy TikTok.
Microsoft, along with Oracle, has been in talks to acquire TikTok, and now Walmart wants in on the action. Walmart expressed interest in buying TikTok, and announced that it would team up with Microsoft to place a bid.
With the TikTok deal valued anywhere from $20 to $30 billion, it’s not a decision to take lightly. In a statement, Walmart detailed its intentions behind wanting to purchase TikTok:
We believe a potential relationship with TikTok US in partnership with Microsoft could add this key functionality and provide Walmart with an important way for us to reach and serve omnichannel customers as well as grow our third-party marketplace and advertising businesses.
We are confident that a Walmart and Microsoft partnership would meet both the expectations of US TikTok users while satisfying the concerns of US government regulators.
It’s clear that Walmart wants to expand its market, which would make the acquisition of TikTok a very strategic move. And by teaming up with tech giant Microsoft, Walmart puts itself in a better position to win the bidding war.
TikTok will likely decide between the Microsoft-Walmart deal and the Oracle offer in a matter of days. After all, following US President Donald Trump’s executive order, TikTok only has until September 15th, 2020 to sell its US assets or else the app will be banned.
If Microsoft and Walmart succeed in acquiring the short-form video app, there’s still no word on how exactly the two companies would split up the joint ownership.
Walmart and Microsoft teaming up together is definitely unusual, but the partnership between a tech and retail powerhouse could be beneficial to the future success of TikTok.
Whichever company becomes TikTok’s new owner, it’ll have a lot of work to do. After all, the TikTok app is still viewed as a privacy risk.