TikTok came up on top of the list of the most downloaded applications in the world. Instagram, Facebook, Telegram and WhatsApp managed to land in the top 5.
TikTok, a Chinese short video platform, has been the most-downloaded non-gaming app for over 10 months. As of October 2021, the downloads of the TikTok app reached over 57 million, based from the data by Sensor’s Store Intelligence platform Tower. Most of the TikTok downloads were from Douyin in China at 17% followed by the United States at 11%. Instagram, owned by Facebook, came in second place.
TikTok was also actually named the most downloaded app of 2020 in August, according to Nikkei Asia. The Chinese video-sharing platform is the only non-Facebook-owned app to secure a spot on the top five downloads list worldwide.
Coming in at second place, Instagram got over 56 million installs, translating to a 31% increase from October 2020. The countries that had the biggest number of Instagram installs were India at 39%, followed by Brazil at 6%.
Chuzen Kin, marketing manager of app market intelligence company App Annie, said, “The total viewing time for TikTok in the U.S. and U.K. is longer than that for YouTube, and short videos will continue to attract attention. In terms of content, music and comedies are becoming more popular.” He suggests that TikTok is fast replacing YouTube as the go-to app for video content viewing during the pandemic era.
TikTok, called Douyin in China, is a video social networking service owned by Chinese company ByteDance. Made available worldwide on 2018, TikTok houses a plethora of short user videos, from genres like comedy, dance and education, with durations ranging from 15 seconds to three minutes.