Tencent Nears $2 Billion Investment in Chinese Video App Kuaishou to Fight ByteDance

Beijing headquarters of Kuaishou. Photo by AP

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Tencent is nearing a deal to invest another $2 billion in Kuaishou, creator of a popular short-video app by the same name that’s gained an especially strong following in China’s smaller cities and countryside, say people familiar with the matter. The investment is designed to counter the rise of ByteDance’s group of apps, including Douyin and its overseas counterpart, TikTok. It also reflects how strongly Kuaishou has been performing.

Kuaishou, which means "fast hand" in Chinese, booked a net profit of nearly 2 billion yuan (about $280 million) on 27 billion yuan in revenue in the first nine months of this year, one of the people said. As of Sept. 30, Kuaishou also had 195 million daily active users and 410 million monthly active users; both numbers were up more than 54% year-over-year, the person said. The figures haven’t previously been reported.