Nearly three years after TikTok was outlawed in India, the Bytedance-owned social media platform has completely fired all of its employees there.
In 2020, TikTok, which had the second-highest user base in India, was prohibited for reasons of national security.
Even though the business lost market share in India, it nonetheless maintained a presence there.
Dubai and Brazil
The majority of the TikTok personnel that worked out of the India headquarters focused on the Dubai and Brazil markets.
Bytedance attempted to negotiate a solution with the Indian government but was unsuccessful in getting back into the Indian market. In the US as well, the app's future is in jeopardy.
According to the most recent developments, TikTok India employed a total of forty people. According to an Economic Times report, the staff received pink slips on Monday during a call and were promised nine months of severance money.
The 'last day'
“The TikTok India employees were told that February 28 would be their last day and were given feelers to look out for other opportunities for some time as it was conveyed that restarting India operations was not going to take off because of the government's stance on Chinese apps,” a source close to the organization told the publication.
The Brazil and Dubai markets were the primary focus of the staff working out of the India branch. Along with 300 other Chinese apps, Tiktok was prohibited in India due to concerns about national security.
"The entire team was informed. We were anyway told some time ago that business in India may be shut off, so look for jobs. Most people will be given 90 days severance," another source told ET as per the report. Bytedance has refused to comment on the layoffs.
Tiktok's reaction
"We have taken the decision to close our India remote sales support hub, which was put in place at the end of 2020 to provide support to our global and regional sales teams. We greatly appreciate these employees and their impact on our company, and will ensure they are supported at this difficult time." TikTok Spokesperson told Free Press Journal.
Sameer Singh
TikTok promoted Sameer Singh earlier this month to lead its global business solutions in North America. Singh joined TikTok in 2019.
India had a substantial user base for TikTok. It was one of the largest marketplaces outside of China, and in 2019 the 15-second video platform ranked first for Android app downloads in India.
People from all walks of life were given work options in addition to using it for enjoyment.
Because it was discovered to be keeping the personal information of Indian users, the app was banned. Indian security specialists claimed that the stored data was shared with Chinese government agencies.
