OAKLAND: Microsoft Corp could re-energise its advertising business with a huge supply of video if it follows through on acquiring TikTok’s US operations from ByteDance.
Microsoft generates the bulk of its US$143 billion in annual revenue by licensing software such as Windows and Office as well as cloud storage and computing tools through its Azure service. But Microsoft also said this month LinkedIn ads sales have fallen this year as the novel coronavirus pandemic prompted advertisers to pare spending.
Without an entertainment service aimed at a broad audience, Microsoft has struggled to capture the increasingly lucrative videos flowing to YouTube, Facebook and more recently TikTok, which widely opened its ad tools this month.