TIK TOK : THE MOST POPULAR APP IN THE WORLD

TikTok/Douyin (Chinese: 蒂克托克/抖音; pinyin: Dì Kè Tuō Kè/Dǒuyīn) is a Chinese video-sharing social networking service owned by ByteDance, a Beijing-based Internet technology company founded in 2012 by Zhang Yiming. It is used to create short dance, lip-sync, comedy and talent videos. ByteDance first launched Douyin for the Chinese market in September 2016. Later, TikTok was launched in 2017 for iOS and Android in most markets outside of China; however, it only became available worldwide, including the United States, after merging with Musical.ly on August 2, 2018. TikTok and Douyin are similar to each other, but run on separate servers and have different content to comply with Chinese censorship restrictions. The application allows users to create short music and lip-sync videos of 3 to 15 seconds, and short looping videos of 3 to 60 seconds. TikTok also has global offices, including in Dublin, Los Angeles, New York City, London, Paris, Berlin, Dubai, Mumbai, Singapore, Jakarta, Seoul, and Tokyo. The app eventually gained popularity in East Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, the United States, Turkey, Russia, and other parts of the world. TikTok and Douyin's servers are each based in the market where the respective app is available.

After merging with musical.ly in August, downloads rose and TikTok became the most downloaded app in the US in October 2018, which musical.ly had done once before. As of 2018, it was available in over 150 markets and in 75 languages. In February 2019, TikTok, together with Douyin, hit one billion downloads globally, excluding Android installs in China. In 2019, media outlets cited TikTok as the 7th-most-downloaded mobile app of the decade, from 2010 to 2019. It was also the most-downloaded app on the App Store in 2018 and 2019.

Since June 2020, Kevin Mayer is CEO of TikTok and COO of parent company ByteDance. Previously he was chairman of Walt Disney Direct-to-Consumer & International. TikTok will be banned in the United States on September 15, 2020 if negotiations to be bought by Microsoft or a different interested company fail.

FOUNDING OF TIK TOK

Douyin was launched by ByteDance in China in September 2016, originally under the name A.me, before rebranding to Douyin in December 2016. ByteDance planned on Douyin expanding overseas. The founder of ByteDance, Zhang Yiming, stated that "China is home to only one-fifth of Internet users globally. If we don’t expand on a global scale, we are bound to lose to peers eyeing the four-fifths. So, going global is a must." Douyin was developed in 200 days and within a year had 100 million users, with more than one billion videos viewed every day. TikTok was launched in the international market in September 2017. On 23 January 2018, the TikTok app ranked No. 1 among free app downloads on app stores in Thailand and other countries.

TikTok has been downloaded more than 80 million times in the United States, and has reached 2 billion downloads worldwide, according to data from mobile research firm Sensor Tower that excludes Android users in China. Many celebrities including Jimmy Fallon and Tony Hawk began using the application in 2018. Other celebrities such as Jennifer Lopez, Jessica Alba, Will Smith, and Justin Bieber joined TikTok as well and many other celebrities have followed.

On 3 September 2019, TikTok and the US National Football League (NFL) announced a multi-year partnership. The agreement occurred just two days before the NFL's 100th season kick-off at the Soldier stadium, where TikTok hosted activities for fans in honor of the deal. The partnership entails the launch of an official NFL TikTok account which is to bring about new marketing opportunities such as sponsored videos and hashtag challenges.

Musical.ly merger

On 9 November 2017, TikTok's parent company, ByteDance, spent up to $1 billion to purchase musical.ly, a startup based in Shanghai with an office in Santa Monica, California. Musical.ly was a social media video platform that allowed users to create short lip-sync and comedy videos, initially released in August 2014. It was well known, especially to the younger audience. Looking forward to leveraging the US digital platform's young user base, TikTok merged with musical.ly on August 2, 2018 to create a larger video community, with existing accounts and data consolidated into one app, keeping the title TikTok. This ended musical.ly and made TikTok a world-wide app, excluding China, since China has Douyin.

Expansion in other markets

As of 2018, TikTok has been made available in over 150 markets, and in 75 languages. TikTok was downloaded more than 104 million times on Apple's App store during the full first half of 2018, according to data provided to CNBC by Sensor Tower. It surpassed Facebook, YouTube and Instagram to become the world's most downloaded iOS app.

Douyin

As a separate app from TikTok, Douyin is available from the developer's website. The app can only be downloaded in China and has a slightly older audience than TikTok, as their user base ranges from children to middle-aged adults. The app uses two different types of verification, an influencer personal verification similar to that of TikTok and a business verification requiring a licence and yearly fee. Business verified users can promote to a specific audience, which allows them to choose where they want their video to be seen, such as a specific physical location. Douyin also has its own store, in which users can tag and advertise their products, and users can request to work with an influencer for brand deals. Part of the app's popularity has been attributed to its marketing campaigns that launched several activities with Chinese celebrities to engage their fans' interest.

Key TikTok Statistics

• TikTok MAUs estimated at 800 million
• TikTok downloaded 738 million times in 2019,
• Total TikTok downloads over 1.5 billion – making it the seventh-most downloaded app of the 2010s
• It is estimated that 57% of the TikTok/Douyin userbase is based in China
• India top market for TikTok downloads in 2019 (if we exclude Chinese Android downloads), with 323 million
• 46 million US TikTok downloads in 2019
• Only 9% of US internet users have used TikTok, with 5% more interested in using it; this rises to 49% for teenage users

• ByteDance reports 400 DAU of Douyin in China, and claim 68% of Chinese social media users/59% of smartphone users are Douyin users
• Musical.ly counted 100 million users at time of August 2018 merger with TikTok
• Singer Loren Gray is the most-followed person on TikTok, with close to 40 million followers
• On Douyin, the most-followed account belongs to actor, model, and singer Dilraba Dilmurat, with around 55 million followers
• Android TikTok users spent 68 billion hours using the app in 2019
• China accounts for eight out of every 10 minutes viewed on TikTok
• Average daily time on TikTok estimated at 45 minutes
• US users open TikTok an average of eight times a day, with sessions averaging just under 5 minutes
• Indian users spend 38 minutes daily using TikTok
• TikTok one-week retention rate stands at 26%
• A late 2018 Global Web Index study found 55% of TikTok users uploaded a video in the last month, compared to 68% who had watched one
• TikTok 2019 revenue came to $176.9 million (excluding non-iOS Chinese revenue)
• ByteDance controls 23% of the Chinese digital app market
• ByteDance became the world’s most highly-valued private startup, with a valuation of $78 billion after a SoftBank-led $3 billion investment round

 Users Growth of tik tok