TikTok is Proving that All Publicity is Good Publicity

Ariel Ariel
1/7/20

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.

Estimated downloads for TikTok, Instagram, and Snapchat by Appfigures

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 Instagram 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.

Estimated downloads for TikTok by Appfigures

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!

App Intelligence for Everyone!

The insights in this report come right out of our App Intelligence platform, which offers access to download and revenue estimates, installed SDKs, and more! Learn more about the tools or schedule a demo with our team to get started.

Are you a Journalist? You can get access to our app and market intelligence for free through the Appfigures for Journalists program. Contact us for more details.

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.

Tagged: #social

Related Resources

Subscription App Revenue Is at an All-Time High
Insights
Subscription App Revenue Is at an All-Time High

I recently gave a keynote at the App Promotion Summit about the state of mobile apps. My overall theme was to highlight ...

The Rankings Unchanged, But Revenue Soars - The Highest Earning Apps in the World in September
Insights
The Rankings Unchanged, But Revenue Soars - The Highest Earning Apps in the World in September

The data has been analyzed, and the top earners across the iOS App Store and Google Play for September 2024 are ready to...