The first quarter of 2019 has seen explosive growth for ByteDance’s viral short-video sharing app TikTok – the app has lured in 188 million new users, recording a 70% annual growth, according to Sensor Tower.
The app was also the third most installed app globally across the App Store and Google Play after Facebook’s WhatsApp and Messenger. TikTok raked in USD 18.9 million globally through in-app purchases, registering a 222% growth from the same period last year.
While top TikTok spenders were from the United States and China, nearly 89 million or half of Tik Tok’s new users are from India.
The encouragement from a continued user growth in the South Asian Sub-continent should come as good news for ByteDance, the world’s most valuable startup, which has had some turbulent weeks.
An Indian High Court asked New Delhi to ban TikTok for “encouraging pornography” last Wednesday. The country’s Supreme Court will hear ByteDance’s plea challenging the ban next Monday. A survey conducted by news app Inshorts shows an overwhelming majority of Indian millennials supported the ban.
Tik Tok was hit by a record fine of USD 5.7 million in the US for illegally collecting personal information of children less than 13 years old.
Editor: Nadine Freischlad