Walmart wants to partner with Microsoft to acquire TikTok in the US

The American supermarket chain Walmart confirms that it wants to take over TikTok in the United States together with Microsoft. The acquisition may be part of Walmart’s effort to create a competitive Amazon Prime offering.

If Walmart and Microsoft jointly acquire TikTok from ByteDance in the United States, it would allay the concerns of US authorities, Walmart said in a statement to CNBC. It is up to the supermarket chain to do the e-commerce and advertising integration in TikTok, the statement said.

Walmart expects to use TikTok to gain a channel towards customers, expand its marketplace and offer advertisements. CNBC links it to Walmart’s efforts to compete with Amazon. This must be done with a Walmart + subscription as a counterpart to Amazon Prime, among other things.

ByteDance is said to be close to an agreement to acquire TikTok in the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Oracle and Twitter would also have shown interest in an acquisition. The US president wants to ban TikTok in the US because the app has a Chinese owner and there are security concerns. The app has hundreds of millions of users.