Report: TikTok weighs direct shopping for users

TikTok may add a direct shopping tool for users as it secures big advertisers like Walmart, Nike and Asos, the Financial Times reports.

The big picture: Blake Chandlee, vice president of global business solutions for TikTok, told FT that the app's current growth stage is "very similar" to when he joined Facebook in 2007.

• The average TikTok user spends roughly "250 to 300 seconds on the app per session" — nearly double the amount of time spent on Instagram, a senior advertising executive told FT.
• More young teenagers use TikTok than Facebook, data from the Morning Consult shows — but Snapchat and Instagram still have more Gen Z users than TikTok.

Yes, but: "TikTok offers less granular detail on who its users are," FT's Hannah Murphy writes. "It is not a conventional social network, where groups of people can be graphed and segmented, but a service that broadcasts clips to its audience."

Go deeper: TikTok's rise lands it in critics' crosshairs