He was reportedly shooting visuals of wild elephants crossing a river in Palakkad
world2 hours ago
US retail giant Walmart said Thursday it had teamed with Microsoft to buy TikTok, the Chinese-owned short-form video app that has come under fire from the administration of President Donald Trump.
The app has been at the centre of a diplomatic storm between Washington and Beijing since Trump signed an executive order on August 6 giving Americans 45 days to stop doing business with its Chinese parent company ByteDance.
The president claims TikTok could be used by China to track the locations of federal employees, build dossiers on people for blackmail, and conduct corporate espionage.
The order effectively set a deadline for a sale of TikTok to a US company, with Trump insisting that the US should get a cut for its role in making the deal happen.
"We are confident that a Walmart and Microsoft partnership would meet both the expectations of US TikTok users while satisfying the concerns of US government regulators," the retailer told AFP.
Walmart is likely interested in TikTok helping it better connect with younger shoppers who turn to the internet for lifestyle trends, according to analysts.
Younger people are much less likely to shop at Walmart, whether online or in real-world stores, according to GlobalData Retail managing director Neil Saunders.
"A social platform like TikTok would give Walmart easy access to the very audience it wants and needs to attract," Saunders said.
Having access to the social media sensation could help Walmart's marketing campaigns while tapping into "a rich seam of data" or product development and more, according to Saunders.
The potential gold mine of younger users' data could also help Walmart compete more strongly with online retail rival Amazon.
Walmart saw its profits jump in latest quarter as e-commerce sales surged during the coronavirus pandemic and US government stimulus payments boosted spending, the company recently reported.
Walmart teaming with US technology colossus Microsoft was "the final piece of the puzzle that ultimately cements Microsoft successfully acquiring TikTok's US operations for likely $35 billion (Dh129 billion) to $40 billion (Dh147 billion)," according to Wedbush analyst Dan Ives.
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