Walmart partners with Microsoft for TikTok bid

Walmart Inc is partnering with Microsoft Corp in the software maker's bid for Bytedance-owned TikTok, the world's largest retailer said on August 27.

ByteDance has been in talks to sell TikTok's North American, Australian and New Zealand operations which could be worth $25 billion to $30 billion to companies including Microsoft and Oracle, people with knowledge of the matter have told Reuters.

US President Donald Trump has demanded that China's ByteDance, which owns TikTok globally, sell its US operations, citing potential national security risk due to the vast amount of private data the app is compiling on US consumers.

"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 said in a statement.

The two companies are two years into a five-year partnership as part of the retailer's push for wider use of cloud and artificial intelligence.

Walmart said TikTok's integrated e-commerce and advertising capabilities in other markets "is a clear benefit to creators and users in those markets."

The retailer's shares were up about 4.4 percent on the news.