Walmart wants to go viral with TikTok, Wall Street thinks it can

BENGALURU : Wall Street was swift to see the rationale behind Walmart Inc jumping into the fray to buy TikTok – access to millions of young, digitally savvy users who could help the 60-year-old company boost its online sales.

The retailer revealed plans to join Microsoft Corp in a bid for the social media firm’s U.S. assets on Thursday, hours after the video company’s chief executive said he would step down.

Analysts said Walmart picking up a stake in the short-form video app, which is owned by China’s ByteDance and claims to have about 100 million active monthly users in the United States, could be a game changer for the world’s largest retailer.