Video is undoubtedly one of the hottest trends at the moment. One TikTok has mainly commanded for several years now.
But while TikTok's revenue is seeing what can only be described as meteoric growth, its downloads aren't growing as much. In fact, they've shrunk quite a lot this year, giving Meta's Instagram the lead. Something it hasn't had in a long time.
Since the beginning of 2020, TikTok was downloaded more than 1.4 billion times. In case you're curious, that's 17% of the world's population. Instagram was downloaded a little over 1 billion times, according to our estimates.
In early 2020, TikTok downloads outpaced Instagram's two to one, but that run has slowed down a lot lately.
By the summer of 2020, TikTok's downloads were down more than 35%. In 2021, Instagram's downloads kept consistent and in June started growing more rapidly. That growth spurt combined with TikTok's slump gave Instagram the upper hand in terms of new downloads. By July the tables have turned and Instagram was in the lead, and it still is now.
This is great news for Instagram and for creators because competition among platforms means they'll continue to fight and innovate.
But don't let downloads fool you. Much like how downloads are higher on Google Play, but revenue is higher in the App Store, TikTok's in-app revenue has been growing exponentially this year, outpacing most other apps in existence.
The same seven apps held the same seven download spots. Revenue told a different story, and a short-drama app from Singapore crashed the top 10.
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