Asia Tech Wire (June 17) -- TikTok parent ByteDance Ltd. will lay off employees at its Indonesian e-commerce unit to cut costs, according to the Wall Street Journal.

TikTok completed in January the deal it announced last December to acquire a 75.01% stake in Tokopedia, the e-commerce platform owned by Indonesia's GoTo Group, for $840 million.

With the deal, TikTok Shop's Indonesian operations combined with Tokopedia under a new entity, PT Tokopedia.

TikTok had previously committed to investing more than $1.5 billion in the entity over time.

A ByteDance spokesperson said that following the merger, the company has identified areas where it can strengthen its organization and better align its teams with the company's goals, and to that end, it will be restructuring as part of its continued growth strategy.

The spokesperson did not comment on the number of layoffs.

Bloomberg had earlier reported that ByteDance was planning to lay off about 450 people, or 9% of its workforce, at its Indonesian e-commerce unit.