ByteDance's gross revenue is on track to rise about 60% to 400 billion yuan (about $63 billion) this year, cementing the TikTok owner’s position as one of the world’s five biggest online ad sellers, according to two people with knowledge of internal projections.

The pace of growth is slower than it was last year, when gross revenue—total sales before payouts to ad agencies are deducted—more than doubled to roughly 250 billion yuan. Even so, the previously unreported projection also suggests ByteDance is growing faster than its bigger social media rivals: Revenue at Facebook owner Meta Platforms rose 46% in the first nine months of this year compared to a year earlier. Tencent, which operates China’s biggest social app, WeChat, reported a 16% rise in revenue in the same period, though more of it came from videogame payments than from ads.