BYTEDANCE Technology, which owns short-form video app TikTok, said yesterday it had no immediate plans for an initial public offering (IPO) in Hong Kong, denying a Financial Times report that said it was looking to list as soon as the first quarter of next year.

The Financial Times reported the news earlier in the day, citing two people briefed on plans.

“There is absolutely zero truth to the rumors that we plan to list in Hong Kong in the first quarter [of next year],” a spokesman for the company said.

Four sources familiar with the company said that ByteDance’s plans to list publicly were not imminent.

The seven-year-old Chinese startup posted a better-than-expected revenue for the first half of the year at more than US$7 billion and was valued at US$78 billion late last year, separate sources have said.

That makes it one of the world’s most valuable unicorns — private firms worth US$1 billion or more. Speculation that it has been considering an IPO has been rife since last year.

ByteDance also owns Chinese news aggregator Jinri Toutiao, meaning “Today’s Headlines,” as well as a domestic version of TikTok, known as Douyin.

Analysts have called ByteDance a strong threat to other Chinese tech industry firms including social media and gaming giant Tencent and search engine leader Baidu.

Globally, ByteDance’s apps have 1.5 billion monthly active users and 700 million daily active users, the company said in July.

(SD-Agencies)