TikTok's Video Editor has Taken Over and the Competition is Feeling the Pain
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CapCut, the video editor from TikTok, has officially taken the lead in its category and is now earning more than any other competitor. Including the one that led the way for years!
And the trend is clear - CapCut's revenue is going up while the competition is dropping.
I've been following CapCut ever since it launched quietly in 2019. For many months, downloads were rising consistently, and when CapCut started monetizing in 2022, the race heated up quickly.
I compared CapCut's revenue to other apps that offer video editing including Facetune, Lightroom, VSCO, and Slice.
Back in January, CapCut earned the least when compared to the rest. Just $3.3M of net revenue from the App Store and Google Play. The leader, Facetune, brought in $8.3M of net revenue in the same month. The rest earned between $3.8M and $4.6M.
By April CapCut's revenue rose to $5.2M, easily leaping over every other app but Facetune, which saw revenue grow to $9.2M in April, according to our estimates.
The rest also rose a bit, but not enough to overtake CapCut.
CapCut continued to grow while the rest continued to drop. CapCut's threat became a reality, stunting growth of apps that have been around for ages. But not Facetune.
But CapCut's rise didn't stop and Facetune's did... In September, CapCut's net revenue grew to $9.6M while Facetune's dropped to $8.7M.
That could have been a fluke, right?
No...
October was CapCut's biggest month of revenue ever at $11.5M of net revenue. That's what Bytedance gets to keep after giving Apple and Google their fees. That's a 20% month-over-month increase and a whopping 249% increase from January.
And here's the thing, I really can't see this trend slowing down any time soon.
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All figures included in this report are estimated. Unless specified otherwise, estimated revenue is always net, meaning it's the amount the developer earned after Apple and Google took their fee.
