TikTok, known as Douyin in its home market, was launched in China in September 2016. It quickly started to gain traction in China and parent company ByteDance launched an international version the following year.
Originally launched as a short-form video sharing platform, primarily for lipsyncing and dancing videos, TikTok has grown into a fully-fledged video service with content available for all types of viewers.
ByteDance had prior experience on running wildly popular apps, as the operator of AI-powered news aggregation platform Toutiao. Zhang Yiming, the founder of ByteDance, incorporated a similar AI-model into TikTok, which is able to identify a user’s interests and feed them more relevant videos.
While many Chinese apps have failed to succeed outside of China, most notably Tencent’s WeChat, TikTok managed to push itself into the overseas market through the acquisition of Musical.ly in November 2017 for $1 billion. This added 80 million users, mostly in the US, which TikTok then imported to its own platform.
From there, TikTok snowballed into the most popular app in 2019 and 2020. It was downloaded 693 million times in 2019 and 850 million times in 2020. Even though it only launched in 2017, TikTok was the seventh-most downloaded app of the 2010s, and is one of the few competitors to Meta’s dominance in social media.
Even with this stellar growth, TikTok has faced several controversies. In 2019, India and Pakistan banned it for “morality issues”, with both bans being rescinded after a while. India banned the app again in June 2020, along with a spate of other Chinese-based apps, as tensions between China and India heightened.
India upheld the ban in January 2021, which has led to several other TikTok-clones taking over market share in the country. At the time TikTok received most of its installs from India.
TikTok has also faced the possibility of being banned in the US on several occasions. Towards the end of the first Trump administration, the President pushed for TikTok to be sold to an American company. President Joe Biden signed an agreement for TikTok to be banned or sold, but Trump has said he will delay this ban and potentially allow the app to continue to operate.
We have collected data and statistics on TikTok. Read on below to find out more. Want even more stats? Check out our TikTok report.
TikTok Key Statistics
- TikTok generated an estimated $23 billion revenue in 2024, a 42.8% increase year-on-year
- TikTok made 77% of its revenue from advertising, with the rest coming from commerce and in-app purchases
- TikTok had 1.6 billion monthly active users in 2023, with Asia-Pacific the largest region for users
- Douyin, the version of TikTok available in China, had 766 million active users
- TikTok has been downloaded over five billion times
TikTok App Report 2025
Want to dive deeper into the most talked about app on the planet? Our TikTok report includes detailed breakdowns on the app’s revenue, usage, demographics, downloads and benchmarks.
TikTok Overview
| Title 1 | Title 2 |
|---|---|
| Launch date | September 2016 (China); September 2017 (International) |
| HQ | Singapore |
| People | Liang Rubo (ByteDance CEO), Shouzi Chew (TikTok CEO) |
| Business type | Private, subsidiary |
| Owner | ByteDance |
| Industry | Social networking |
TikTok Revenue
TikTok has rapidly increased its revenue generation in the past few years. In 2023, it generated $23 billion annual revenue.
TikTok revenues 2017 to 2024 ($mm)
TikTok revenues 2017 to 2024 ($mm)
| Year | Revenue ($bn) |
|---|---|
| 2018 | 0.15 |
| 2019 | 0.35 |
| 2020 | 2.6 |
| 2021 | 4.8 |
| 2022 | 9.6 |
| 2023 | 16.1 |
| 2024 | 23 |
Source: TikTok Report
TikTok Revenue by Type
TikTok makes the vast majority of its revenue outside of China through advertising.
TikTok revenues by type 2018 to 2024 ($mm)
TikTok Users
TikTok reached 1.6 billion users in 2024, a 6.1% increase on the previous year.
TikTok users 2018 to 2024 (mm)
TikTok users 2018 to 2024 (mm)
| Year | Users (mm) |
|---|---|
| 2018 | 133 |
| 2019 | 381 |
| 2020 | 700 |
| 2021 | 902 |
| 2022 | 1366 |
| 2023 | 1587 |
| 2024 | 1685 |
Note: Values taken in Q2 of the respective year. Source: TikTok Report
TikTok Users by Region
TikTok has high amounts of usage in all regions and has over 700 million users in Asia-Pacific region, which does not include China and India.
TikTok users by region 2018 to 2024 (mm)
| Year | Asia Pacific | North America | Europe | LatAm | MENA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | 88 | 12 | 8 | 5 | 6 |
| 2019 | 185 | 49 | 59 | 33 | 28 |
| 2020 | 300 | 82 | 104 | 61 | 55 |
| 2021 | 404 | 110 | 138 | 97 | 82 |
| 2022 | 590 | 169 | 199 | 168 | 119 |
| 2023 | 682 | 192 | 238 | 217 | 141 |
| 2024 | 740 | 193 | 263 | 245 | 163 |
Source: TikTok Report
Douyin Users
Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, has 766 million daily active users and is one of the most popular apps in the country.
Douyin daily active users 2017 to 2024 (mm)
| Date | Users (mm) |
|---|---|
| 2017 | 33 |
| 2018 | 150 |
| 2019 | 400 |
| 2020 | 600 |
| 2021 | 710 |
| 2022 | 735 |
| 2023 | 750 |
| 2024 | 766 |
Source: CNBC
TikTok Downloads
TikTok was the most downloaded app in 2024 with 773 million downloads. It has been downloaded over five billion times since launch.
TikTok downloads 2017 to 2024 (mm)
TikTok cumulative downloads 2017 to 2024 (mm)
| Year | Downloads (mm) |
|---|---|
| 2017 | 150 |
| 2018 | 807 |
| 2019 | 1534 |
| 2020 | 2384 |
| 2021 | 3040 |
| 2022 | 3712 |
| 2023 | 4366 |
| 2024 | 5139 |
Sources: Apptopia, Data.aiÂ
TikTok Age Demographics
A majority of TikTok users are aged under 30, with the largest age bracket aged between 20 and 20 years old.
TikTok worldwide age demographics 2024 (%)
| Age bracket | Percentage of users |
|---|---|
| 13-17 | 21% |
| 18-24 | 30.2% |
| 25-34 | 23.3% |
| 35-44 | 12.6% |
| 45-54 | 7.5% |
| 55+ | 5.5% |
Note: Individual country demographics available in TikTok Report. Source: App Ape
TikTok Gender Demographics
TikTok is used by more women than men, but that gap is closing as it loses its stigma for being an app for teenagers and dancing.
TikTok worldwide gender demographics 2024 (%)
| Gender | Percentage of users |
|---|---|
| Male | 48.4% |
| Female | 51.6% |
TikTok vs Social Apps: Users
TikTok is far behind Facebook’s big three and YouTube, but it has increased its active users quicker than any other social app over the past four years.
Social app active users 2024 (bn)
Want to learn more about social apps? Check out our Social App Report
TikTok FAQ
What is TikTok’s global internet penetration?
TikTok is used by 23% of global internet users aged 16 to 64 (GlobalWebIndex)
What countries is TikTok most popular in?
Outside of China, TikTok’s largest markets are the US, Indonesia and Brazil
How many users did TikTok have in India before it was banned?
TikTok had 190 million users in India, making it the app’s second largest market behind China
How many times has TikTok been downloaded?
TikTok reached five billion downloads in 2024. It was the seventh-most downloaded app of the 2010s (Data.ai)
What is TikTok’s peak quarterly downloads?
TikTok had 315 million downloads in Q1 2020, which is a record for quarterly downloads not including Chinese third-party app stores (SensorTower)
What is TikTok’s valuation?
TikTok was valued at $50 billion without the algorithm sale in 2025 (Wedbush Analysts)
What is ByteDance’s valuation?
ByteDance was last valued at $400 billion, however trading in private markets has exceeded $480 billion (SCMP)
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