TikTok and India

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Usage in India

Hours spent/ month, 2017-19

Madhav Chanchani, January 31, 2020: The Times of India

Growth in monthly hours spent on TikTok outside China, December 2017- December 2019
From: Madhav Chanchani, January 31, 2020: The Times of India

Indians clocked 5.5 billion hours on TikTok, the mobile application used to post 15-second short videos. This is an increase of over six times from the 900 million hours spent in 2018, according to data of Android users assessed by mobile and data analytics firm App Annie. TikTok outstripped growth of rival Facebook in the key battleground market for global user domination.

The number of monthly active users (MAUs) on TikTok increased by 90% to 81 million as of December 2019, as compared to the same period in the previous year, as India emerged as the largest market outside the home base China. At the same time, Facebook saw total hours spent on the platform increase by 15% to 25.5 billion hours, while its MAUs as of December also increased by 15% to 224 million. Facebook-owned photosharing platform Instagram grew its MAUs much faster at 40% to 137 million as of December on Android, which is the dominant operating system with over 90% market share in India.

While TikTok — owned by the world’s most valued startup ByteDance at $75 billion — remains behind global rival Facebook in terms of users and time spent, it is catching up fast. TikTok launched in India in September 2017, about 28 months ago, while Facebook, for whom the country is the largest market in terms of users, has been available since September 2006.

The TikTok app was also downloaded 323 million times across both Apple’s App Store and Android devices in India in 2019 — over twice the 156 million times Facebook was, according to Sensor Tower data.

“In December 2019, the time spent on Tiktok in India was more than the next 11 countries combined. It is not only that there are more people engaging, but there is deeper engagement per person,” said Lexi Sydow, senior market insights manager, App Annie. She added what works for TikTok is that it is blurring the line between a social network and entertainment. TikTok’s India numbers have outstripped its global growth numbers — where time spent on the app grew over two times, while MAUs went 70% to 717 million, with a large majority in China, according to App Annie. Facebook is not operational in China.

The numbers come at a time when TikTok is increasingly looking to monetise its fastgrowing user base in the country as it has hired a top management team. TikTok is also eyeing Rs 100 crore in revenue for the July-September quarter, according to a report on Entrackr, up from Rs 23-25 crore in the December quarter.

According to investors tracking the space, TikTok’s ability to create stars early in the life of the social network has attracted more users and content-creators on the platform, giving it the “viral loop”. “Their content format in full screen is also very engaging, as with one swipe you are on the next one, unlike other platforms where buffering takes time. In both their video-streaming technology and the application of artificial intelligence, they have truly pushed boundaries,” said Pratik Poddar, principal at Nexus Venture Partners, a VC firm. “And they are genuinely aggressive and not shied away from spending money.”