A new potential buyer for TikTok has reportedly entered the fray - Oracle.

The US computer tech corporation, which is more a brand in the world of IT than consumer apps, is said to have held preliminary talks with Bytedance, the company behind TikTok.

According to the Financial Times, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison is working with a group of US investors, including General Atlantic and Sequoia Capital who already have a stale in Bytedance, to purchase all TikTok operations in the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

It is therefore going head to head with Microsoft, which is the only other known candidate for acquisition.

Rumours of Twitter also entering the market have circulated in recent times, but it seems the rival social network only made preliminary enquiries and is yet to follow them up.

Bytedance is under pressure to sell its US business by November, after US president Donald Trump signed an executive order claiming that he had "credible evidence" that the company was using the app to breach US security.

Critics claim that Bytedance is doing no more with its customers' data than the US-owned Facebook, and that this is merely another salvo in Trump's ongoing trade war with China.