TikTok's Downloads Dropped 38% in the US This Year

Ariel Ariel
5/19/23

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Earlier this week, the state of Montana announced its plan to ban TikTok in 2024. This is the first decisive action we've seen regarding TikTok so far, and while I don't think it'll actually happen, it did raise a thought - does the US still want TikTok?

Over the last few years, demand for TikTok has been generally following an upward trend. A spike during covid and a very healthy 2022.

But that run seems to be over.

According to our estimates, TikTok made its way into 3.1M iOS and Android devices in the US.

This sounds like a lot and considering that's 3 times the population of the state of Montana it is, but when you compare it to March's 4.2M downloads it's a significant drop. A 26% drop if you prefer more precision.

It gets worse when we compare it to February's 4.3M downloads and even worse when compared to January's 5M downloads.

And I'm not even going to compare it to 2022, when TikTok's downloads rose to a peak of 7.8M, according to our App Intelligence.

Is TikTok on its way out?

Not really... Keep in mind, these figures are only for the US, which was responsible for roughly 13% of all of TikTok's downloads since 2018. Not including China, TikTok has been downloaded more than 3B times in that period.

Ultimately, I expect Montana won't go through with this decision. The only reason I can think of for Montana to announce the decision now but not put the block in place until 2024 is so they can play the news game while being persuaded not to do it.

Do you think I'm wrong?

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Tagged: #social-media

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