Chinese social media and ecommerce giant ByteDance has refuted rumours of a potential acquisition of the food delivery branch of Alibaba, the company told Reuters today (19 December). 

ByteDance was reported to be in talks with Alibaba’s Ele.me food delivery business. Ele.me is the second largest food delivery service in China. 

Rumours of such an acquisition were first reported by Chinese media according to a Reuters report. 

ByteDance has previously tested out food delivery on its Chinese TikTok platform, named Douyin, in February 2023. 

In conversation with CNBC, a spokesperson for ByteDance confirmed that the company had considered extending its food delivery service on Douyin beyond its initial trial period. 

“We would consider expanding the feature to more cities in the future depending on the testing results. There is no detailed timeline yet,” stated the spokesperson. 

In its 2023 thematic intelligence report into social media, research company GlobalData explain that social media companies are now needing to diversify to continue being profitable. 

As the advertising funded business model of social media continues to be under tighter scrutiny, platforms may turn to gaming and e-commerce to stay afloat. 

In 2023 alone, Alphabet, Amazon, ByteDance, and Meta were fined a combined $7.7bn for breaching data privacy laws over their ad-targeting practices. 

By 2030, GlobalData forecasts that the e-commerce sector could be worth over $9trn.