Officially..U.S Bans TikTok on Sunday

USA administration announced on Friday that it is banning China’s TikTok and WeChat services from mobile app stores next Sunday.

The US commerce department, which will issue the orders, stopped short of forcing Apple and Google to remove the Chinese versions of TikTok and WeChat from their app stores in China.

In contrast, TikTok has grown explosively in the United States, boasting about 100 million users on a quarterly basis. WeChat had about 3.3 million monthly active users in the United States as of August, according to analytics provider App Annie.

According to TikTok Chief Executive Officer Kelly Zhang, the service produced 41.7 billion yuan, in revenue for more than 22 million creators over the past year and the company intends to spend US$1.5bil, in a push to double that figure over the next 12 months.

The people appeared to be hurrying to download WeChat on Friday, before the ban sets in. WeChat climbed to No. 100 on Friday afternoon among free iPhone apps in Apple’s U.S. App Store, from No. 1,385 that morning, according to data provider Sensor Tower, according to Washington post.

Later, Oracle announced won a deal to manage TikTok’s US cloud operations. It had been rumored to be part of the bidding process to acquire that app.

According to The Wall Street Journal that the company has been selected as a trusted tech partner instead. This is different from an outright sale, and appears to suggest Oracle will be helping run TikTok’s US operations with its own cloud technologies.