Social Media Data Insights & Resources for Social Media
In August 2018, the global version of Douyin, what we all know as Tiktok, was released. It quickly became the next famous social platform, sitting with Instagram, Facebook, and WeChat as the top social platforms worldwide. What differentiates TikTok from these other social platforms, however, is the rate at which TikTok grew and gained popularity. Within three years, from 2018 to 2021, TikTok attained 1 billion monthly active users worldwide with over 3 billion downloads. In comparison, Instagram and Facebook took three times as long to get to that number. Filled with short-clip videos and a personalized algorithm, TikTok statistics show how these two main components took the social platform to where they are now.
Users
As mentioned before, it has been reported from ByteDance, a Chinese tech giant and owner of Douyin and TikTok, that there are 1 billion monthly active users worldwide as of the end of 2021. The graph above shows steady growth, comparing the four years and their different quarters. Looking at the second quarter of each year reveals that 2018 has a cumulative 133 million monthly active users, 2019 with 381 million, 2020 with 700 million, and finally, 2021 with 1 billion.
When the World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 as a global pandemic in March 2020, many countries shut down and life was placed on hold. Within that year, millions of people hopped onto TikTok, which is evident from the huge jump from 2019’s second quarter and 2020’s second quarter.
In a wider scope, within 4.8 billion internet users today, there are 4.48 billion active social media users, 22.32% of which use TikTok. It has also been estimated that TikTok had 73.7 million monthly and 50 million daily active users in the United States alone.
Downloads
When TikTok was globally released in 2018, its cumulative downloads of 750 million greatly surpassed its 2017 cumulative downloads of 130 million. This achievement though cannot compare to its 2019 to 2020 cumulative downloads. Due to quarantine, TikTok’s cumulative downloads increased from 1.5 billion to 2.6 billion, a difference of 1.1 billion downloads within one year. Lastly, it has been estimated that 2021 has 3.3 billion cumulative downloads.
Quarantine was definitely a factor in the increase of TikTok users and downloads, however, two other main components are also the short-clip videos and the personalized algorithm that makes the platform so addicting to users. Creativity runs wild within TikTok, so much so that there are different communities formed from the algorithm catered towards each user.
Revenue
The increase of users and downloads in 2020 paved the way for TikTok to make $1.9 billion in revenue. Compared to that, 2021 has been estimated to collect a revenue of $4.6 billion.
Some may question how they are making that much revenue, but don’t forget that TikTok relies heavily on its large user base. The most popular source for their revenue includes the advertisements TikTok incorporates into a user’s feed and the in-app purchases.
Never-ending Increasing Growth
These statistics and estimates prove that TikTok will stay as one of the most popular social media platforms for a long while. Hitting 1 billion monthly active users worldwide and 3.3 billion downloads, TikTok has surpassed Instagram and Facebook. What made it so popular were the short-clip videos and the personalized algorithm. In fact, TikTok has carried short-clip videos over to different platforms including Instagram, Facebook, and even YouTube due to its favorability from consumers. It can be expected that TikTok will keep growing at a record-breaking pace.
