The expanding footprint of TikTok

Social media is a platform that never fails to surprise. The most you entertain your users, you will get succeed. While the giants like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter remain relevant here -a new contender has entered the arena, especially among the young people- TikTok.This social media app allows the users to post short lip-synced, music, talent, or comedy videos, TikTok taking the social media world by storm.

Global time spent on TikTok grew 210% year-on-year in 2019. In a market dominated by American social media networks, ByteDance, the Chinese company that owns both TikTok and Helo, has cut itself a large slice of the Indian market, especially outside its metros. Both its short video sharing apps have ranked as the top two breakout social apps of 2019 in India (App Annie, State of the Mobile 2020), which also their largest market outside china. A spokesperson for ByteDance said that increased internet penetration and adoption of smartphones has fuelled its popularity. TikTok was the most downloaded app in the US in October 2018, the first Chinese app to achieve this. In February 2019, TikTok, together with Douyin, hit one billion downloads globally, excluding the Android installs in China. In 2019, TikTok was announced to be the 7^th most downloaded mobile app of the decade.

According to the App Annie report, TikTok has been inching its way up the charts in western markets too, it topped the list in Canada and was ranked number two in the US. TikTok’s explosion in India in the 18-month period since January 2018 has expanded its reach to 30% of all Indian smartphones as of august 2019, according to data provided by Delhi based market intelligence firm KalaGato. With the app’s rising popularity, Indian users have been spending more than 30 minutes a day on TikTok, ahead of both Instagram and Snapchat. The company spokesperson said that over the last two years, popular content creators, credible educational institutions and partners, and celebrities have joined TikTok making it a vibrant space.

India is priority market for ByteDance, being the second most popular market outside its home and the company has spent considerable time understanding its need and limitations. Multifunctional and multilingual, the platform attracts a wide spectrum of users who tap into the network for multiple reasons. This making the platform sticky and engaging, for users, and lucrative for brands.