TikTok is the international version of Douyin, a popular short-form video app in China. Users can upload short, quirky videos of themselves to the app and share them with followers. ByteDance, the Chinese company that owns both apps, acquired US short-video app Musical.ly in 2017 and merged it with TikTok in August.

TikTok has been on a growth tear around the world, but its US performance has been especially notable. TikTok’s US monthly active user audience grew by 30 million in the three months since the merger, and downloads were up 25% in the US and 20% worldwide, according to app tracker Apptopia.

Tracking by App Annie found that TikTok was the second most-downloaded app in the Apple App Store and Google Play as of November, among social, communication, photo and video apps. In June it ranked No. 7.

Some of the uptick seen in the Apptopia and App Annie data can be attributed to the fact that Musical.ly users were automatically switched over to TikTok once that app shut down. But there are other factors, such as a promotional push by late-night host Jimmy Fallon, who used TikTok for a series of viewer challenges, including one where users could make a video of themselves rolling like a tumbleweed and then upload the video to the app.

Worldwide, TikTok rose to the No. 2 spot in app downloads in November 2018, according to SensorTower, behind WhatsApp and ahead of Messenger, Facebook and Instagram.

Sourced through Scoop.it from: www.emarketer.com