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Amazon has reportedly landed among the suitors to acquire TikTok in a move that could give it instant access to the video-sharing app’s 170 million U.S. user base and influence with younger consumers.
News of the bid, first reported by The New York Times, came just before TikTok-owner ByteDance faced an April 5 deadline to sell the social media platform or face a shutdown in the U.S. On April 4, the Trump administration for the second time extended the deadline another 75 days.
Legislators in both parties have expressed national security concerns over the app’s Chinese ownership.
Amazon’s bid came via a letter addressed to Vice President JD Vance and Howard Lutnick, the commerce secretary, but sources told the Wall Street Journal that the bid isn’t “likely to progress.”
Still, Amazon has long had ambitions to build more of a social media presence, acquiring the Goodreads book-review site in 2013 and the Twitch gamers platform in 2014. In 2019, a QVC-like Amazon Live livestreaming platform was introduced to a dedicated portion of the Amazon.com website.
In late 2022, Amazon added Inspire, a short-form video and photo feed like TikTok, onto its app, but the retailer removed it in February of this year. TechCrunch speculated that Inspire’s failure was because its compensation was too low to entice influencers to contribute the content required to drive traffic.
TikTok nonetheless has soared as a leader in social commerce since the U.S. launch of the TikTok Shop in 2023, attracting 47 million shoppers to the platform who spend on average $32 million every day, according to Capital One Shopping.
TikTok added an estimated 11.9 million U.S. buyers in 2024 compared to 3.9 million for Instagram, 2.6 million for Facebook, and 1.1 million for Pinterest, according to eMarketer.
"While Amazon is the No. 1 destination for searching for products, it remains a channel that is most suited to planned and specific purchases," Neil Saunders, GlobalData managing director and RetailWire BrainTrust member, told CBS MoneyWatch. "It has certainly made some inroads into becoming a place for consumer entertainment and discovery, which led to impulse purchases, but this is very much the preserve of TikTok and TikTok Shop. This more impulse driven part of the market is faster growing [than] more established e-commerce channels."
Ronald Josey at Citi reiterated his “Buy” recommendation following the speculation in part due to TikTok’s potential to expand Amazon’s advertising business, according to TipRanks.
eMarketer likewise said that beyond enhancing the product discovery phase, TikTok could boost on-site ad inventory and access to first-party data to provide another leg of growth to Amazon’s retail media business. eMarketer wrote, “If Amazon could keep TikTok’s most engaging elements while avoiding ad overload or clunky integrations, it stands a better chance of success than with Inspire.”