While U.S. tech giants fall over themselves trying to snap up TikTok’s American business, there's a large slice of the global short-video service that seems to be forgotten. Ever the deal hound, SoftBank Group Corp.’s Masayoshi Son seems to have dug up what could be the smartest move he’ll make this year.
Already an investor in TikTok parent ByteDance Ltd., SoftBank is putting together a coalition to bid for the company’s business in India, Bloomberg News reported late Thursday.
Remembering that TikTok doesn’t operate in China — where there’s a local version called Douyin — India is the app’s largest market, with 200 million users. Well, at least before Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government started banning Chinese apps following a bloody border clash in June that flared back to life this week.