Chinese short-video giant ByteDance is selling about 4.38 million shares in digital reading platform operator IReader Technology, a stake worth about 106 million yuan (US$14.9 million) based on closing share prices on Thursday.
The sale will be carried out over three months by Beijing Liangzi Yuedong Technology, a wholly-owned subsidiary of ByteDance, IReader said in a filing to the Shanghai Stock Exchange on Wednesday.
This is the third time that ByteDance, which currently owns around 7.5 per cent of IReader, is cutting back its holdings in one of China’s most popular mobile reading platforms, after it bought a roughly 11 per cent stake for 1.1 billion yuan in 2020.
Back then, the two firms said they would be working closely in areas from the co-development of intellectual properties and content creation to marketing and advertising.
ByteDance reduced its stake to around 10 per cent in March this year, followed by another sale in April.
After the latest transaction, the Beijing-based company’s stake in IReader will be just around 6.5 per cent.
IReader shares are up by more than 62 per cent so far this year, after rising 4 per cent to 24.32 yuan on Thursday.
ByteDance did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
IReader told investors in April that ByteDance was unwinding its stake based on its own corporate strategy, adding that the move would not have an adverse impact on their business ties.
ByteDance made its first foray into the Chinese online reading industry in 2019, when it invested in Beijing-based Mymind Culture, which runs five reading platforms focusing on various genres from romance to thrillers.
In the third quarter, Fanqie Novel was the country’s most popular mobile reading app with a user penetration rate of 34.3 per cent, according to market consultancy BigData Research, which ranked IReader third with 24.7 per cent penetration.