TikTok is Proving that All Publicity is Good Publicity
TikTok, the mobile video sharing app that's been taking over social media, has been in the news a lot lately. And not in a positive way.
The Chinese-based app and its developer have been accused of spying for the Chinese government more than once, but that hasn't stopped the app's astronomic growth, outpacing industry incumbents Instagram and Snapchat in downloads for most of 2019.
Here's what downloads look like for TikTok across 28 countries we currently provide intelligence for, right alongside a few names you might find more familiar, Instagram and Snapchat.
TikTok's year has been stellar, closing 2019 with more than 508 million downloads. An increase of 47% year over year. This December the app hit an all-time high, netting more than 57M new downloads on the App Store and Google Play.
| Snapchat | TikTok | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 173,228,199 | 294,103,131 | 508,268,383 |
| 2018 | 145,869,583 | 295,630,807 | 326,710,992 |
| 2017 | 217,195,791 | 301,285,924 | 75,938,917 |
Chief rival Instagram ended much less exciting 2019 with 294M. A million downloads under what they saw in 2018. Snapchat on the other hand added 173M new downloads, an 18.7% increase over 2018, but still a fraction of TikTok.
TikTok Owns India
The bulk of the new downloads these apps have been getting in 2019 came from India. India accounted for roughly 61% of all downloads for TikTok, but only 10.5% for Instagram and 5.6% for Snapchat.
Will TikTok's meteoric growth continue into 2020? Will this new wave of scrutiny eventually hurt downloads? Only time will tell. We're continuing to keep an eye on this segment and will report on it in the future so stay tuned!
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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.
