TikTok owner facing layoffs after India ban

China's ByteDance is cutting the size of its 2,000-plus India team and is unsure when it will make a comeback, the company told employees in an internal memo on Wednesday (January 27), months after India banned its popular TikTok video app.

Wednesday's cuts came after India decided to retain the ban on TikTok and 58 other Chinese apps over concerns about compliance and privacy.

The ban dates from last year, when political tension between the neighbors rose over their disputed border.

"We initially hoped that this situation would be short-lived... we find that has not been the case," ByteDance wrote in the memo, which was seen by Reuters.

The memo said the team couldn't stay fully staffed while the app was banned with no word on when that will change.

It didn't specify how many people would lose their jobs.

Before the ban, India was one of TikTok's largest markets and ByteDance in 2019 had laid out plans to invest $1 billion in India.

At the time of last year's ban, the Indian government described the apps as prejudicial to the "sovereignty and integrity of India," following a skirmish with Chinese troops on their Himalayan border.