TikTok’s UK Subsidiary Files Company Financials / Revenues for Europe, UK, Latin America and Africa

TikTok’s UK subsidiary has published its latest financial results covering operations in Europe, the UK, Latin America and Africa. The report shows revenue growth of 38% to $6.31bn in 2024, while the company significantly reduced its operating losses from $1.37bn in 2023 to $484.6m last year.

Filed with Companies House in the UK, these results primarily address financial performance rather than user statistics. However, earlier this year TikTok separately disclosed user numbers for the European Union. The platform reached 159 million monthly active users across the EU by the end of 2024, with its largest markets being France (25.1 million), Germany (24.2 million), Italy (22.8 million) and Spain (21.9 million).

Free Music Distribution for TikTok and Resso

RouteNote has started offering Free Music Distribution to TikTok and Resso. RouteNote was one of the first music distributors to partner with TikTok and Resso globally and they can provide full access into the platform for no upfront fees and artists and labels keep 85% of the royalties.

TikTok and Resso pay royalties to both artists and labels so its worth adding your music into the music library into TikTok so creators of all shapes and sizes can find you and promote your tracks to a global audience.

TikTok Has Already Had Opportunities to Sell to Microsoft, Oracle, Sequoia and General Atlantic – But Decided No

It seems like everyone wants to piece of TikTok before D-Day in the USA.

Microsoft have been in talks for some time but don’t seem to be progressing.

Oracle are now reportedly in talks, but there has been no real confirmation of those talks from either side (plus I don’t know why Oracle would think that it would be a good fit to run a video consumer product).

Sequoia and General Atlantic attempted to buy a majority stake in TikTok last month, but both seem to have failed.

I think TikTok won’t be selling any stakes as it seems like they have had adequate opportunities already, but have decided not to move forward with those advances.

It going to be very interesting to see how this plays out.

Is TikTok deciding the future of music?

TikTok has become a very strong force in online video and become a place for youth culture to thrive.

TikTok has a great feature that allows anyone creating a TikTok to use any music they have licensed in their catalogue. This has driven great success for specific artists and it has now become a marketing strategy of the major labels to get their music used by song of the world’s largest TikTok creators.

TikTok isn’t the future of music, but it is for sure a driving force in the music industry.

Music Industry – Old Money, No Longterm Thinking, Lacks Innovation!

Now the music business sees TikTok as its tool. After being caught flat-footed by the success of “Old Town Road,” and then bringing it in-house at Sony, the labels decided they wanted some of that action. If TikTok could build the unknown Lil Nas X, imagine what it could do with a known quantity, a star?

The music business used to be first, but now it’s last. Because it is controlled by old people who did not get the memo, who believe they are indispensable and that no one can resist their money.

But isn’t it funny that not a single musical star has captured the zeitgeist of the Minneapolis/Black Lives Matter explosion in a song we all know. Illustrating that reflecting life, and opening up an audience’s eyes as to the way of life, are not part of the equation. In the music business, it’s all about collecting fans and milking them dry. When one of the biggest acts in the business, Justin Bieber, tries to manipulate the system to make his record number one, who in the hell is gonna listen to the words of a pop star?

via Bob Lefsetz

The quote above is from the most recent newsletter / article from Bob Lefsetz. Bob has been a long time music industry journalist and I thought that the above section is by far the best thing I have read about the music industry in the past 12 months.

Lefsetz is right!

The music industry has long been run by 60 year old businessman who don’t under the generations they are targeting. It’s no longer about the music and the industry runs more like buying and selling real estate than an art form at the top.

Pop music struggles to tell stories and really drive emotions. This is exactly why tracks from John Lennon, Elton John, Rolling Stones, Dolly Parton, Johnny Cash, are still getting very large numbers of plays even with the youngest audiences.