10 TikTok Statistics That You Need to Know in 2019 [Infographic]

Most people might recall TikTok as being the hit pop single by Kesha. And we don’t blame them. But for the teens of the world, it has taken a completely different meaning. Try asking one of Gen Z’ers and they’ll tell you that TikTok is a completely new subculture. 

TikTok is one of the fastest growing social media platforms in the world which presents an alternative version of online sharing. It allows users to create short videos with music, filters, and some other features. 

Sometimes it’s funny, sometimes it’s cringey, but it’s definitely addictive. 

And while for many people TikTok seems to be filling a void left by Vine, there’s much more to it than just that. TikTok provides a platform for users to express themselves in a very creative way.  

But what exactly is this mystery app that youngsters can’t seem to get enough of? Let’s take a look. 

What is TikTok?

TikTok is an iOS and Android media app that can be used for creating and sharing short videos. It was initially launched as Douyin in September 2016, in China. The following year, in 2017, the app was launched by ByteDance for markets outside of China. TikTok and Douyin both use the same software, but maintain separate networks in order to comply with Chinese censorship restrictions. TikTok is available all around the world via the App Store or Google Play stores.

Our favorite cover of “Stand by Me.” 😍 pic.twitter.com/qcVTwiPvI5

— TikTok (@tiktok_us) October 22, 2018

Some of you might be wondering why TikTok might sound oddly similar to Musical.ly in terms of what you do within the apps. And there’s a good reason why. In late 2017, TikTok’s parent company ByteDance, purchased Musical.ly. As a result of the merger, TikTok had smooth access to targeting the US teenage market which previously belonged to Musical.ly.

To give you an idea of what TikTok aims for as a company, their mission is “to capture and present the world’s creativity, knowledge, and precious life moments, directly from the mobile phone. TikTok enables everyone to be a creator, and encourages users to share their passion and creative expression through their videos.” In doing so, TikTok competes with giants like YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook that have either the backing of Google or Facebook. 

What helps TikTok stand out among the competition is that it’s more of an entertainment platform, instead of a lifestyle platform. And what makes it so attractive is that practically anyone can become a content provider because of the simplicity of using the app. That’s why it appeals to so many content creators around the world. 

Now that we understand what TikTok is, let’s dive into the top 10 TikTok statistics for 2019, and why knowing them can be useful for marketers around the world. 

Top 10 TikTok Statistics

1. TikTok Monthly Active Users

TikTok was launched in September 2016, and in the three years since its launch, it’s safe to say that it has exploded in popularity. TikTok has 500 million active users worldwide (Datareportal, 2019). That makes TikTok 9th in terms of social network sites, ahead of better known sites such as LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest, and Snapchat.

It’s interesting to point out that 150 million active daily users are in China, which mostly use the Chinese version of the app, called Douyin. TikTok has especially been enthusiastically welcomed by many Asian countries such as Cambodia, Japan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam. Just to give you an idea of how other apps perform in comparison, it took Instagram six years from its launch to gain the same amount of monthly active users that TikTok  managed to achieve in under three years. And for Facebook to hit the same monthly active users mark, it took nearly over four years. 

2. TikTok Downloads

TikTok was the third most downloaded app in the first quarter (Q1) of 2019, with 188 million new users. For a year over year comparison, it has grown by 70 percent from Q1 2018 (SensorTower, 2019). That’s mind-blowing. For this particular quarter, the growth of TikTok was mainly driven by an increase in new users in India, where an estimated 88.6 million new users joined the social media app. In comparison, TikTok amassed approximately 13.2 million new users in the United States during Q1 2019.  

But for Q2 2019, TikTok might not be able to keep up its pace, as the government in India recently pressured Apple for the removal of the app nationwide. The ban was later lifted, but this may have already been too late and resulted in a loss of about 15 million downloads for TikTok. 

Another interesting fact is that in the top five most downloaded apps worldwide in Q1 2019, TikTok is the only one that is not owned by Facebook. TikTok first crossed the one billion mark for worldwide installs (on both App Store and Google Play) in January 2019, which is an achievement that can’t be overstated. By attaining all this in such a short period of time, there seems to be no looking back for TikTok at this point. 

3. TikTok is the Most Downloaded App on the Apple App Store

If the previous TikTok statistic didn’t amaze you, this one will surely blow you away. 

As of Q1 2019, TikTok is the most downloaded app on the Apple App Store, with 33 million downloads in a single quarter (Sensor Tower, 2019). The app strongly beats out YouTube, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Facebook Messenger, which round out the top five. 

What’s more, this is TikTok’s fifth consecutive quarter as the most downloaded app on the Apple App Store. This means that not only is TikTok able to keep its current user base strong, but it’s also constantly evolving to attract a new and growing user base.

But TikTok appears to be more popular among iPhone users than Android users – TikTok is ‘only’ the third-most downloaded app on Google Play, behind WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger. 

Even so, Q1 2019 is the app’s best performing quarter yet, with 188 million new users – a year-on-year increase of 70 percent from the 110 million new users it registered in Q1 2018.

As further evidence of the app’s recent growing popularity, TikTok also crossed the one billion mark for app installations on the App Store and Google Play worldwide. This was largely thanks to the 667 million first-time downloads in 2018 – which propelled it to fourth place on the list of most downloaded non-game apps of the year.

4. TikTok App Conquers the Teens of the World

TikTok has really hit the nail on the head when it comes to engaging with the youngsters of the world. It might be a bit of a head scratcher for the older generations, but TikTok is no news to the teens of the world. 41 percent of TikTok users are aged between 16 and 24 (Globalwebindex, 2019). 

The social media app is all the hype among youngsters, but many adult social media users have never heard of it and you might be wondering why. Simply put — it’s by design. To start off, the popularity of TikTok with the younger generation could be explained by the fact that the app creators decided to choose under 18 as their target audience from the very beginning. In a way, you can say that TikTok creators have understood the younger generation in a better way than competitor apps. With their target audience specified from the start, they’ve understood the habits and preferences of this age group which has led them to create a social media app that gives their audience exactly what they’re looking for. TikTok allows users to create and share funny videos while singing, dancing, or lip-syncing to their favorite tunes. It allows the younger crowd to express themselves in a creative way, whether that’s by dancing, singing, or doing some form of comedy. If you think of it this way, it’s no surprise why it has generated so much hype among the teens of the world. 

5. TikTok’s Gender Divide

According to 2018 data, it seems like TikTok is more popular among male users than female. When it comes to the usage of TikTok based on gender, 55.6 percent of users are male and 44.4 percent of users are female (App Ape Lab, 2018). It’s also interesting to note that the presence of male users is higher than that of female users in every age group. The percentage difference might not be a huge one in any particular group ranging from 10 year olds to 50 year olds, but it’s still fascinating to note the comparatively higher popularity of the app among male users.

When TikTok was released, it gained initial recognition mainly among high school girls, but now the male users are higher for all age groups. Another thing to note is that many users don’t necessarily use the social networking platform to post videos, but merely to watch them. 

6. Average Time Spent on TikTok Daily

When it comes to the daily time spent on TikTok, users spend an average of 52 minutes per day on the app (BusinessofApps, 2019). So this means that people are using the social networking app daily either for creating and sharing short videos of themselves, or for watching the existing plethora of TikTok videos uploaded to the platform. Either way, they’re doing it for almost an hour everyday. 

Let’s take a look at how other social media sites perform in comparison to TikTok. People spend almost the same amount of time on Instagram (53 minutes), and a little less on Snapchat (49.5 minutes). Facebook takes the lead with users spending an average of 58.5 minutes on the social media platform each day. And for marketers, all this can be a big deal to know. That’s because the more time people spend on these apps, the higher is the chance that they will see advertisements.

7. TikTok Goes International

As of 2019, TikTok is available in 155 countries (Apptrace, 2019). It’s also available in 75 languages. This covers a large part of the population. 

What’s even more interesting to note is how TikTok managed to gather such a huge audience in such a short span of time, all the while growing into new markets. To begin with, most of TikTok’s Western audience belonged to Musical.ly, and for the Eastern audience they run a separate version of the app called Douyin, that they’re much more familiar with. TikTok has done particularly well with growing its Asian followers. The app is downloaded more than 10 million times by the people in Thailand alone. And in India, there are now more than 20 million active users of the app. 

As a marketer, this TikTok statistic can be of interest to you when you’re considering your marketing efforts based on your target audience. With TikTok you have the possibility of reaching an audience in 155 different countries. And, statistically speaking, there’s a very high likelihood that your audience is located somewhere in these countries. 

8. Nine out of Ten TikTok Users Use the App Multiple Times Daily

Three-quarters of all apps are downloaded, accessed once, and then entirely forgotten. With the next TikTok statistic, you can be sure that TikTok falls into the remaining one-quarter.

90 percent of all TikTok users access the app on a daily basis. Not only that, they are extremely active on the app. A study observing the behavior of TikTok users in the span of one month shows that 68 percent of TikTok users watch someone else’s video and 55 percent upload their own videos (Globalwebindex, 2019).

There also appears to be a difference in watching and sharing habits, with the former a clear preference among TikTok users.

To dig deeper, there might be some obvious reasons why there’s a preference of watching existing content over publishing your own. Some users might prefer TikTok as a source of entertainment. But, despite the fact that users are more actively watching existing content, there’s still an astonishing number of people who are sharing their own videos. This also demonstrates the creative freedom and simplicity of TikTok as a social platform.

9. Growing Number of US Adults Use TikTok

We’ve got another fascinating TikTok statistic that helps us understand the demographics of TikTok users better. Basically, Americans love TikTok. 26.5 out of the 500 million monthly active users are from the USA. This statistic combines the downloads of TikTok from both Android and iOS. 

But even though the app is still overwhelmingly more popular among teens, latest figures actually show a shift away from this trend. 

Apart from slight dips in the third quarter of 2018, the number of US adults using TikTok has been pretty much consistently on the rise over the past few years (Marketingcharts, 2019).

At the start of the fourth quarter of 2017, there were 2.6 million US adult TikTok users. Just 12 months later, that increased nearly three-fold to 7.2 million. Since September 2018, TikTok usage among US adults has increased exponentially – doubling and reaching 14.3 million in just six months. 

In less than 18 months, the number of US adult TikTok users grew 5.5 times.

One of the main contributing factors of TikTok’s sudden rise in popularity from September 2018 can be attributed to The Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon. As part of the show’s segment, The Tonight Show host, Fallon encouraged viewers to take part in a series of challenges hosted by the TikTok app. As a result of this partnership, TikTok experienced a huge spike in engagement and downloads. 

10. Average Number of Viewed Videos on TikTok

When it comes to the average number of videos watched on TikTok, there were more than 1 million videos viewed every day in a year (Influencermarketinghub, 2018). What’s mind blowing is that within a year of TikTok’s development, it reached this milestone of 1 million views per day. 

This TikTok statistic is proof in itself that you need to start paying attention to this social media site. As mentioned earlier the app started initially growing when it acquired its rival Musical.ly in 2017. After the merger of the two apps, there was no looking back. This way not only did TikTok have a smooth entry to the market but it also catered to an existing market’s needs. But it’s important not to forget that TikTok’s sizable user base is not only due to a growth in Western markets, but because of effectively growing in emerging markets like China and India. 

Content and community were a big player in encouraging the growth of TikTok in a very short span of time. From then onwards, TikTok continued to grow and reach new audiences. 

Conclusion 

So it’s safe to say that TikTok is doing much more than just replacing Vine, or other similar social media apps. Now while TikTok might be competing with the big players in the market, the platform serves a different purpose than YouTube, Instagram, or Snapchat. TikTok is a platform mainly aimed at content creators. And the ease with which anyone can become a content creator, is one of the many factors that gives TikTok an advantage over the competition. With these TikTok statistics in mind, you’ll be able to understand the new social media happenings in a better way. These statistics also prove that whether you’re a social media marketer or a social media user, TikTok isn’t a force to be taken lightly. It’s time to pay serious attention to TikTok.

 

Summary: TikTok Statistics 

Here’s a summary of the TikTok statistics you need to know in 2019:

1. TikTok has 500 million active users worldwide. 
2. TikTok was the third most downloaded app in the first quarter (Q1) of 2019, with 188 million new users.
3. TikTok ranked as the top most downloaded app in Apple’s iOS App Store for Q1 2019, with more than 33 million downloads. 
4. 41 percent of TikTok users are aged between 16 and 24. 
5. 55.6 percent of TikTok users are male and 44.4 percent of users are female.
6. When it comes to the daily time spent on TikTok, users spend an average of 52 minutes per day on the app.
7. TikTok is available in 155 countries, and in 75 languages. 
8. 90 percent of all TikTok users access the app on a daily basis.
9. In less than 18 months, the number of US adult TikTok users grew 5.5 times.
10. There was an average number of more than 1 million videos viewed every day in a year. 

Want to Learn More?

• TikTok Ads: Everything You Need to Know About Marketing on TikTok
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• Statistics Library
• 10 Internet Statistics Every Marketer Should Know in 2019 [Infographic]

Is there anything else you’d like to know about TikTok statistics and wish was included in this article? Let us know in the comments below!