On Monday, the short-video-format social media giant TikTok said it had passed 1 billion monthly users.
Remarkably, it’s a remarkable number for a platform launched in August 2018. As we know, it has been scrutinized by governments — including America — that are concerned about the data collection practices of its parent company, ByteDance. However, U.S. President Joe Biden’s ascension to the White House allowed the firm to continue operating as normal.
TikTok, which China-based ByteDance owns, has reported a rise in users over the past few years. Its popularity grew during the pandemic, becoming the most downloaded app globally in the first quarter of 2020, with 315 million downloads in that quarter alone.
Remarkably, the short-form video app’s popularity soared as individuals spent more time on their phones during the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, it has benefited from and fueled the growth of the creator industry, as more individuals look to make a living from posting content to social media sites.
ByteDance witnessed its 2020 revenue more than double from the year before $34.3 billion. TikTok installs have hit 3.2 billion from its launch, including information from Douyin (the Chinese version of the app).
Remarkably, TikTok’s monthly average users in August were up 25% from August 2020. Meanwhile, in June of 2021, ByteDance has a net worth of $425 billion.
TikTok Launched a $1bn Creator Fund, Aimed to Encourage Users to Create Content
According to the Chinese giant TikTok, it had around 55 million global users by January 2018. That number boosted to more than 271 million by December 2018, while it gained 507 million by December 2019. The firm reported about 700 million monthly active users last summer.
Moreover, Facebook announced in Q2 that it had 3.51 billion monthly users across its family of apps, up from 3.45 billion in the first quarter of the year.
However, the company launched one of the most successful short-form video apps. Many of its large-tech rivals were racing to create their versions. The social media giant Facebook launched its TikTok analogy, Instagram Reels, broadly last August. Meanwhile, Snap launched a similar feature called Spotlight last year. Google’s YouTube announced its competitor, Shorts, last September.
Furthermore, TikTok successfully drew in more millennials and high-profile creators from Instagram and other sites throughout the coronavirus pandemic. In 2020, the firm also launched a $1 billion creator fund to encourage individuals to create content on the platform.
