On Monday Eastern Time, US software giant Oracle admitted in its annual financial report to the US Securities and Exchange Commission that the Biden administration's "no sell no ban" bill against TikTok may harm Oracle's financial performance.
Biden's "ban if not sold" bill may harm oracle bone inscriptions
On April 24 this year, President Biden of the United States signed a bill that involves forcing ByteDance to spin off TikTok's business in the United States. In relevant terms, ByteDance is required to divest its business in the United States within about nine months, otherwise it will face a nationwide ban.
Oracle clearly wrote in its annual report that the law signed by US President Biden in April "will make it illegal for them to provide TikTok with Internet hosting services", and will "adversely affect Oracle's revenue and profits".
Oracle bone script wrote in the report:
"In April 2024, the President of the United States signed a bill. If the owner of TikTok does not take certain measures within the specified time, it will be illegal to provide TikTok with Internet hosting services for distribution, maintenance or updating of TikTok to users in the United States. If we cannot provide these services to TikTok, if we cannot redeploy these capabilities in a timely manner, our income and profits will be adversely affected. Compliance with these laws may increase our fees, because we need to use professional or other additional resources to assist us in our compliance work."
TikTok is one of Oracle's largest clients
Currently, TikTok uses Oracle's cloud infrastructure to store and process US user data. Many Wall Street analysts believe that TikTok is one of Oracle's largest clients in the cloud infrastructure business.
As early as when Biden signed the ban in April, Derrick Wood, an analyst at TD Cowen, an investment bank, wrote in a report: "Oracle may lose a significant portion of its revenue related to hosting most of TikTok's US operations."
Currently, Oracle has not disclosed the details of its financial relationship with TikTok. However, Evercore ISI analyst Kirk Matteney estimates that if TikTok generates $16 billion in annual revenue in the United States, it may allocate 3% to 5% of its revenue to cloud infrastructure, which means Oracle's annual revenue from TikTok could range from $480 million to $800 million.
According to the latest annual report released by Oracle, the company's cloud infrastructure division generated approximately $6.9 billion in sales in the year ending May 31.
For Oracle, the cloud infrastructure department is the key to gaining business growth from the surge in demand for artificial intelligence. Since the beginning of this year, with the continuous growth of the company's cloud infrastructure business, the stock price has risen by nearly 34%.