Chinese tech unicorn ByteDance Ltd., owner of the hugely popular short video app TikTok, is anticipating a loss of more than $6 billion after three of its apps were banned in India early this week.

That amount is most likely more than the combined losses for all the other Chinese companies behind the other 58 apps banned in India.

ByteDance became one of China’s latest homegrown technology companies to run into growing resistance from foreign governments wary of perceived ties to Beijing and concerned about protecting user data.

All the 59 apps have now been removed from Apple Inc. and Google app stores for the Indian market.

The ban is a huge blow to the global expansion of TikTok, which is touted as the most popular Chinese app overseas. India is its largest market in terms of users outside China.

The app was downloaded in India 611 million times in this year’s first quarter, equating to 30.3% of its total downloads worldwide in the quarter and nearly double the total number of India downloads for all of 2019, according to SensorTower.

We have been invited to meet with concerned government stakeholders for an opportunity to respond and submit clarifications,

TikTok

TikTok said in a statement responding to the Indian government’s move that the company would fully comply with its ruling. It said it didn’t share information with any government, including the Chinese government.

TikTok employs over 2,000 full-time local staff in India. In April 2019, in response to a previous setback from local regulators, the company announced it would invest $1 billion in the country over the next three months.

Source: Caixin