Source: SupChina (6/25/19)
TikTok reaches 1 billion downloads, challenges Facebook
WHAT HAPPENED?
In a major milestone for a Chinese technology company, the short-video app TikTok, known as Douyin (抖音 dǒuyīn) in its home country, was downloaded over 1 billion times as of earlier this year. That’s according to statistics from Sensor Tower, a U.S. company that tracks apps.
- Chinese companies had already produced several mega-apps, including the social media-and-everything-else app WeChat that also has over one billion active users, but none of those apps has ever had global reach.
- TikTok, by contrast, is an international sensation, with its addictive video algorithm making junkies out of millions from India to Thailand to the United States.
- Tiktok’s parent company Bytedance, which originally was known for its news app Toutiao, now has more employees than Facebook.
WHAT’S NEXT?
Bytedance now seeks to take a larger bite of the global video advertising market currently dominated by Instagram, Snapchat, and Youtube. The company has made a series of high-profile hires and publicity appearances, including at the Cannes Lions festival, where Fast Company says “TikTok’s rising cultural cachet is palpable—and seemingly irresistible to marketers.”