ByteDance, the privately held parent of TikTok and Douyin, saw its 2025 net profit fall by more than 70 percent year-on-year, with the decline attributed to heavy spending on artificial intelligence infrastructure, according to a report by the South China Morning Post citing Chinese media outlets.

The SCMP report says that overseas revenue rose by nearly 50 percent during the year, outpacing domestic China growth of roughly 20 percent, and that international revenue exceeded China revenue for the first time. The underlying figures, according to SCMP, were first reported by Securities Times and 36Kr, which attributed them to an unnamed person familiar with the matter.

Numbers Come From Unnamed Sourcing

ByteDance has not publicly confirmed the profit decline, the revenue split, or the AI spending figures. The company is not publicly listed and does not file standardized financial disclosures. DeepBrief has not independently verified the Securities Times or 36Kr reports and has requested comment from ByteDance; this article will be updated if the company responds.

The SCMP article attributes the profit drop specifically to AI-related capital expenditure, without citing a disclosed dollar figure for that spending. A separate write-up on meyka.com, which also cites the Chinese-language reporting, frames the decline in similar terms and links the overseas revenue growth to TikTok Shop, the platform's e-commerce arm.

Overseas revenue exceeded domestic revenue for the first time, according to reports cited by the South China Morning Post.

AI Capex Context From Public Peers

ByteDance's reported spending surge aligns with a broader pattern among large platform companies investing in AI compute. Meta Platforms guided 2025 capital expenditures to a range of $60 billion to $65 billion, citing AI infrastructure as the primary driver, according to its earnings disclosures. Alphabet guided 2025 capex to approximately $75 billion on similar grounds, per its earnings calls.

Because ByteDance does not disclose capex on a comparable basis, direct benchmarking is not possible from the reported figures alone. The SCMP report does not specify whether the AI spending is concentrated in data center buildout, chip procurement, model training, or a combination. Readers tracking infrastructure spending shifts can compare this with recent data center moves such as AirTrunk's acquisition of Lumina CloudInfra in India.

Revenue Mix Shift

According to the SCMP summary of the Chinese-language reporting, the revenue composition inside ByteDance has changed materially. Overseas operations — which include TikTok, TikTok Shop, and international versions of the company's other apps — grew faster than the domestic Douyin-led business for the year.

Separately, Bloomberg reported in December 2025 that ByteDance was on track for roughly $50 billion in profit for the year, a figure the company has not publicly confirmed. The Bloomberg profit estimate and the SCMP-reported profit decline are framed on different bases — Bloomberg referenced an operating profit projection earlier in the year, while the SCMP report describes full-year net profit — and the two cannot be directly reconciled without audited disclosure.

TikTok US Regulatory Overhang

The reported financial results come as TikTok's US business remains subject to an ownership restructuring. Reuters reported in December 2025 that an American investor consortium was set to acquire the TikTok US entity, citing a prior Axios report. Fortune and NBC News both reported on the structure of a deal brokered under the Trump administration involving ByteDance and US investors.

None of those reports are cited by SCMP in connection with the profit figures, and the Chinese-language reporting does not tie the 2025 financial performance to the US deal structure. The US business represents one component of the overseas revenue line that the reports say now exceeds domestic revenue.

What ByteDance Has Not Said

ByteDance has not issued a press release confirming the 2025 results, has not commented on the Securities Times or 36Kr reports, and has not disclosed an AI capex figure. DeepBrief's reporting relies on the SCMP write-up of the Chinese-language sources and corroborating coverage from meyka.com, Bloomberg, Reuters, Fortune, and NBC News for context on the TikTok US transaction.

Executive changes at other AI-focused companies, such as Kevin Weil's departure from OpenAI, and public-market benchmarks such as Cerebras's reported $510 million in 2025 revenue, provide reference points for AI-sector financial disclosure standards that ByteDance, as a private company, is not bound to match.