【经济学人】字节跳动引美国关注(2)

Unlike most of its peripatetic predecessors, though, ByteDance has built its empire by making products that appeal beyond China. It is China's first global software giant. It has also courted （译为：吸引）foreign investors.

peripa'tetic adj.漫游的；逍遥学派的；徒步游历的；巡回的 n.走来走去的人；逍遥学派的人

court n.法院；朝廷；球场；奉承  vt.向……献殷勤；设法获得；招致（失败、危险等）  vi.求爱

Filings in Hong Kong show that it has used an arrangement called the "Sina structure", which allows it to accept money from abroad, since its founding (many Chinese tech firms turn to this structure only when eyeing a stockmarket listing in America（译为：考虑在美国上市）). 

filing  n.文件归档   filing system 归档系统   filing data 存档日期

file n.文件夹，公文箱；文件  vt.把……归档；提交（申请等），呈递；用锉锉

Around 80% of ByteDance's investors are non-Chinese. So are four of its five board members. The other is Mr Zhang. 

Board of directors 董事会

All this helps ensure ByteDance is not, in contrast to many Chinese tech upstarts, in hock to Alibaba, Baidu and Tencent- which is handy, for Bytedance competes with China's tech titans for ad revenue. 

upstart n.暴发户；新贵；傲慢自负的人  adj.暴富的

new upstart 新星

hock n.抵押，典当；肘关节  vt.典当    

in hock to 欠某人

It makes most of its money selling ads in its two main Chinese apps: Douyin, a Chinese TikTok, and Toutiao, a multimedia-and-news app akin to Facebook's newsfeed? (its WeChat rival, Duoshan, disappointed). 

akin to 类似

akin adj.同组的；同类的；类似的

How much money it makes, exactly, is unclear: as a private company Bytedance does not publish its accounts. But leaks and statements from investors put last year's revenue at between 104bn yuan and 140bn yuan ($15bn-20bn), more than Uber, Snapchat and Twitter combined. 

Its ad revenues in China surpassed Tencent's and Baidu's and now trail only those of Alibaba. It reportedly turned a profit in June 2019, a feat in the world of loss-making unicorns. 

trail v.落后于

feat n.技艺表演；功绩，壮举  adj.合适的；灵巧的

If the firm generates $25bn in sales this year, as it is expected to despite covid-19（尽管受到COVID-19的影响）, it will have done so three years faster than Facebook. It is the only big Chinese firm whose share of the domestic advertising market is growing fast, from 9% to 17% in 2019, according to Bernstein, a research firm. 

A recently launched advertising network, Pangle, which lets advertisers reach consumers across any of its non-Chinese apps, may at last help it monetise（货币化）TikTok.