TikTok, the world famous video-sharing app, made its international debut in September 2016.
The platform is owned by ByteDance, a tech company headquartered in Beijing and which is also responsible for other well-known apps like:
When TikTok first launched, no one could predict that it was about to take the world by storm.
Fast forward to now, TikTok is the fastest growing social media app in the world.
TikTok has accomplished in just over 4 years what it took Facebook and Instagram to do in 10 years.
Crazy, right?!
The rapid growth is impressive and tells a lot about its audience.
These TikTok user statistics tell the whole story of the new social media giant and give you some insights into the app’s future.
What Will I Learn?
TikTok has experienced extremely fast growth since the beginning.
It quickly became one of the most popular social media platforms in the world challenging the likes of Facebook and Instagram.
Here are some of the key TikTok statistics you need to know:
As you can see TikTok has become a giant in the social media world and they don’t look like they will be slowing down anytime soon.
TikTok is acquiring new users at a significantly faster rate than any of the other major social media platforms in the world.
The following TikTok user statistics show that it is one of the fastest-growing apps… ever.
TikTok has over 1.5 billion monthly active users.
For reference this is how many monthly active users the other major social media platforms currently have:
| Platform | Monthly Active Users |
|---|---|
| 3 Billion | |
| YouTube | 2.5 Billion |
| 2 Billion | |
| TikTok | 1.5 Billion |
| Snapchat | 800 Million |
| Twitter/X | 611 Million |
| 498 Million |
TikTok is the 4th largest social media platform (excluding messaging app like WhatsApp, WeChat, ect…) in the world by monthly active users.
It’s double the size of Snapchat and quickly catching up to Instagram.
What’s more?
There are 4.8 billion internet users in the world and 20.83% of them use TikTok.
To go further:
As of January 2024, the United States was the country with the largest TikTok audience by far, with almost 136 million users engaging with the popular social video platform.
Indonesia followed, with around 108 million TikTok users. Brazil came in third, with almost 92 million users on TikTok watching short-videos.
| Rank | Country | Number Of Users |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | United States | 136 million |
| 2 | Indonesia | 108 million |
| 3 | Brazil | 92 million |
How has TikTok done in the US?
The Unites States is the country with the most monthly active TikTok users.
It’s estimated that TikTok has 136 million monthly active users in the US alone.
Today the US has about 267.6 million mobile internet users of which 37.36% access TikTok at least once a month.
TikTok has over 50 million daily active users. 18.68% of all Americans with mobile internet login to TikTok every single day.
That’s quite the commitment to a social media app!
TikTok has really found its home in younger users.
But more recently, as the app has grown in popularity worldwide, older users have started to take an interest.
Here’s a quick overview:
But overall, teenagers make up the largest group of active users on TikTok.
How to explain that?
Well, that’s simple. The majority (over 50%) of content creators are young people between 18 and 24 years old.
This is the breakdown of active users on TikTok by age group:
| Age Group | Active Users (%) |
|---|---|
| 10-19 | 25% |
| 20-29 | 22.4% |
| 30-39 | 21.7% |
| 40-49 | 20.3% |
| 50+ | 11% |
25% of TikTok’s active user accounts are aged 10-19 in the United States.
But popularity has increased significantly in the young adults’ age group in recent years.
Active users aged 20-29 make up 22.4% followed closely by active users aged 30-39 making up 21.7%.
There is a significant drop off of active users aged 50+. This is expected to grow over time, similar to what has happened with Facebook and Instagram.
About 45% of all TikTok users in the US are Gen Z.
TikTok has a significantly larger female user base globally.
Here’s what the breakdown looks like:
| Gender | User Percentage (%) |
|---|---|
| Female | 60% |
| Male | 40% |
Did you know that 60% of all TikTok users worldwide are female, with 40% of the platform users being male?
On top of that, there are a lot of strong female content creators who have moved over to TikTok from Instagram.
Regional TikTok user statistics differentiate significantly. Each major region has also experienced growth a different times:
| Year | South-East Asia | North America | Latin America | Europe |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | 62 million users | 28 million users | 3 million users | 21 million users |
| 2019 | 130 million users | 55 million users | 10 million users | 52 million users |
| 2020 | 198 million users | 105 million users | 64 million users | 98 million users |
Latin America had a slow take-up of TikTok but exploded in terms of user base in 2020.
South-East Asia has the largest user base by almost double, but growth has started to slow compared to the other regions.
TikTok has become the most engaging social media app in the world.
These next TikTok engagement statistics show you just how much people love TikTok and how the app has grown in engagement over time.
Globally the average user spends 52 minutes on TikTok every day. About 90% of their worldwide users access TikTok on a daily basis.
One of the most important engagement metrics for all social media companies is average session length. It measures how long the average user spends on the platform every time they open and use the app.
The average session length on TikTok is 10 minutes 51 seconds.
This is almost double Pinterest who comes in second place with an average session length of 5m36s.
When people open up TikTok their attention is engaged for far longer than any other social media platform. This in itself is a very important stat.
In 2019, TikTok had a 210% year-over-year increase in engagement time.
The total time spent on TikTok by all users in 2019 was estimated to be over 68 billion hours.
Even though TikTok has exploded in growth, their engagement statistics are still very strong. So, if you want to expand your business’ marketing…
Pay attention to TikTok!
The opportunity to build a large engaged audience organically on TikTok is right now.
This is almost 5 times as much as Instagram which has only 1.1% and destroys Twitter which has just 0.30%
As you can see TikTok has significantly better engagement which provides business owners and content creators with a bigger opportunity.
TikTok’s global engagement is really good. But how does it compare to US TikTok statistics?
The average adult TikTok user in America spends 33 minutes per day on the app.
This actually ranks it in 2nd place as Facebook adult users spend an average of 35 minutes per day.
Facebook still has a slight advantage over TikTok in the US, although this is expected to change as TikTok continues to grow in popularity:
That’s a massive win for TikTok – especially because their biggest competitor (Facebook) has experienced a significant decline in engagement.
The average US user opens TikTok 8 times per day.
From October 2019 to March 2020 TikTok has experienced significant consistent gains in monthly user engagement.
In October 2019 users spent an average of 442.9 minutes per month on TikTok.
Just 6 months later in March 2020 users spent almost double that at an average of 858 minutes per month.
That’s a big increase for such a short period!
| Month/Year | Avg. Minutes Spent On TikTok (per month) |
|---|---|
| October 2019 | 442.9 minutes |
| November 2019 | 526.1 minutes |
| December 2019 | 561.2 minutes |
| January 2020 | 680 minutes |
| February 2020 | 731.6 minutes |
| March 2020 | 858 minutes |
And what’s more impressive is the consistency of growth month to month. TikTok has continued to engage users and build a platform that keeps them coming back for more.
As of April 2024, TikTok has risen through the ranks to become the 5th most popular social media network worldwide, by number od monthly active users.
| Rank | Social Network | Monthly Active Users (in millions) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 3,065 | |
| 2 | YouTube | 2,504 |
| 3 | 2,000 | |
| 4 | 2,000 | |
| 5 | TikTok | 1.582 |
| 6 | 1,343 | |
| 7 | Facebook Messenger | 1,010 |
| 8 | Telegram | 900 |
| 9 | Douyin | 755 |
| 10 | Kuaishou | 700 |
The popularity of TikTok is arguably more impressive because of the speed at which it has grown. It took just over 4 years to achieve these results.
There is wide speculation that it will eventually enter the top 3 as older users embrace the platform more and more.
This is what happened with both Facebook and Instagram.
Every social media platform tends to have content for specific industries that work better than others.
Although you could create content on TikTok for any category with a bit of creativity, some categories naturally work better.
| Category | Views (in billions) |
|---|---|
| Entertainment | 535 |
| Dance | 181 |
| Pranks | 79 |
| Fitness/sports | 57 |
| Home reno/DIY | 39 |
| Beauty/skincare | 33 |
| Fashion | 27 |
| Recipes/cooking | 18 |
| Life hacks/advice etc. | 13 |
| Pets | 10 |
| Outdoors | 2 |
Entertainment clearly works best on TikTok. Dance and pranks also tend to get good engagement and views.
If you are looking for a bit of inspiration then these are the top 10 content creators on TikTok with the most followers at the moment:
| Rank | Influencer | Username | Followers (in Millions) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Khabane Lame | @khaby.lame | 162.4 | 2 | Charli d’Amelio | @charlidamelio | 157.2 | 3 | MrBeast (Jimmy Donaldson) |
@mrbeast | 115.1 |
| 4 | Bella Poarch | @bellapoarch | 94 |
| 5 | TikTok | @tiktok | 89 |
| 6 | Addison Rae | @addisonre | 88.4 |
| 7 | Kimberly Loaiza | @kimberly.loaiza | 83.4 |
| 8 | Zach King | @zachking | 82.3 |
| 9 | The Rock (Dwayne Johnson) |
@therock | 80.3 |
| 10 | Dominik Lipa | @domelipa | 77.2 |
Khabane Lame is known for his entertaining videos mocking the complexities people face in their daily lives.
Planning on becoming a TikTok sensation?
This is how much money the top TikTok content creators make:
| Rank | Influencer | Estimated Annual Earnings (USD) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Charlie D’Amelio | $17.5 million |
| 2 | Dixie D’Amelio | $10 million |
| 3 | Addison Rae | $8.5 million |
| 4 | Bella Poarch | $5 million |
| 5 | Josh Richards | $5 million |
Brands are certainly ready to pay you to sponsor their products if you have a big enough (and engaged) following.
But the value that businesses and brands see in a TikTok post vs an Instagram post is very different.
It still pays more to be an influencer on Instagram at the moment. But as the TikTok platform grows you will likely see higher payouts for creative influencers.
Planning to use TikTok to market your business?
Facebook advertising has long been the gold standard for paid social media ads.
While that still remains true (for now), TikTok has been investing in their own advertising platform with a focus on ensuring quality and relevant ads.
These are the TikTok statistics you need to look at for paid marketing.
You can run TikTok ads and send traffic to:
You can also “boost” posts and hashtags to get extra reach for the content you create.
Creativity is what generates the most success on TikTok. And the platform gives you plenty of tools to help you market your business.
You can create branded:
You can embed these in your own videos so that people easily recognise your brand as they enjoy your TikTok content.
TikTok is also currently working on new augmented reality ads which could be a real game-changer. Currently ads are made up of video and audio.
With augmented reality, ads could be interactive. This opens up a ton of different possibilities for advertising in the future.
TikTok created its own advertising platform so all businesses can take advantage of the fast-growing social media network.
It will take some time to learn and TikTok ads are very unique compared to other social media advertising platforms. It’s recommended to hire experts in TikTok marketing and ads if you want to launch a campaign.
On top of that, TikTok currently offers $300 of free ad credit for new brands advertising on TikTok for the first time.
Engagement and users are one thing. But every business needs revenue to grow consistently. TikTok is certainly not short on revenue.
In 2020, TikTok brought in $33.4 billion in revenue.
| Year | Revenue (USD) |
|---|---|
| 2018 | $7.4 billion |
| 2019 | $17 billion |
| 2020 | $33.4 billion |
TikTok managed to more than double its revenue from 2018 to 2019. And in 2020 they almost doubled it again.
Who contributes all of this revenue?
Reports show that:
But this is where it gets interesting.
Only 5% of marketers in the US use TikTok for advertising. As TikTok grows and attracts more marketers from the US their revenue is likely to skyrocket.
To say that TikTok is just getting started with advertising is a huge understatement.
With a huge amount of users and revenue behind it…
How much is TikTok worth?
TikTok was valued at $50 billion by investors in 2020.
But today, experts estimate TikTok is worth up to $75+ billion while ByteDance is valued at around $200 billion.
The bottom line: The time for TikTok is now.
Now that you’ve read a complete round-up of the most important TikTok user statistics you understand the success of the platform. And there is one thing unmistakably clear about TikTok…
They know how to grow fast.
They also don’t look like slowing down anytime soon. TikTok is constantly taking advantage of new trends and giving its users all the tools needed to create great content.
And that’s just the user side of it.
TikTok has a host of new features it’s launching for businesses to run fun and profitable advertising campaigns.
If you are considering TikTok for marketing, now is the time to jump in. It will only get bigger from here!
Want more statistics posts? Take a look at these blogs:
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This post is incredibly informative! I had no idea TikTok’s user demographics were so varied. It’s fascinating to see how the platform is evolving and reaching different age groups. Thanks for breaking down the statistics so clearly!
Wow, I had no idea TikTok had so many users! The statistics on daily active users is mind-boggling. I learned a lot from this post, thanks for sharing!
This piece grossly leaves out TikTok statistics for Africa. Literally the whole region. You’d think there is no TikTok in Africa entirely!
Hi Joy. We did not purposely leave out Africa. At the time of writing, we just couldn’t find accurate statistics about the use of TikTok in this region.