Despite threats of the ban from the Trump administration and a slew of similar products to catch up with, TikTok holds on to its crown as the TOP MONEY EARNER in apps worldwide, according to information data released by Sensor Tower store in August. But TikTok can’t rest easy, as data shows that TikTok is losing market share to similar alternatives. Even if TikTok doesn’t end up being banned, it may take time and effort to recover those lost users.
TikTok was still the top earning App in August
In August 2020, the world’s top earner among non-game apps was TikTok, with revenues in the apple store and Google stores exceeding $88.1 million, 6.3 times its revenues in the same period last year. But that was a big month-on-month drop compared with the previous data from May to August.
TikTok Monthly Revenue Statistics
In August, About 85 percent of TikTok’s revenue came from China, 7.8 percent from the United States, and 1.4 percent from Turkey.
YouTube was the second earner non-game app worldwide in August 2020, with revenues of over $83.9 million, up 54.8% year-on-year. About 55% of YouTube’s revenues come from the U.S., followed by 13% from Japan. It was followed by Tinder, the highest-paid social networking app, followed by Tencent Video and comic platform Piccoma.
But it’s worth noting that since July, when the U.S. government began threatening to ban TikTok, downloads at TikTok’s competitors have soared. In fact, these alternatives to TikTok have been working to increase market share since the beginning of 2020 and have been making steady progress.
In January, TikTok accounted for about 76% of downloads, compared with 24% for the other four apps combined. But by August, Bytedance’s four biggest rivals had climbed to 44 percent of the market, while TikTok’s had been squeezed by 20 percentage points.
While both TikTok and its rivals saw month-on-month installations decline in August, several of TikTok’s main rivals in the US saw monthly active user Numbers (MAU) increase. In August, MAU of TikTok’s rivals were up 12% from July and 49% from January. That could be a sign that these TikTok’s rivals are already attracting interest from some U.S. users looking for an alternative to TikTok.
Among TikTok’s rivals, Triller and Likee became the top apps being downloaded each month in the US since January and were the top contenders to grab TikTok’s market share.
Likee, whose former product is Like video, an app belongs to Singapore video social platform BIGO, was launched in July 2017. It was initially a short video product featuring young people’s interaction in Southeast Asia. BIGO was acquired by Huanju Group in early 2019, which brought the company under its wing.
Triller was launched by Triller LLC in 2015 and entered by US President Donald Trump.
In addition to these major competitors, many well-known social platforms are also trying to get involved in the field of short video sharing, hoping to get a piece of the cake.
On August 5, Instagram launched Reels, a new function widely derided as a fake version of “TikTok”; YouTube and Snapchat were also adding similar new features in hopes of attracting TikTok’s loyal users. While Reels hasn’t had any noticeable impact on Instagram downloads since its launch, the data show that the new function has helped Instagram see a slight increase in average weekly active users over the previous month.
TikTok has not lost its crown
Despite the threat of the ban from the Trump administration and competition from similar products, TikTok remains the leader in short video sharing, with downloads still slightly up from June, though down from August, and up 51 percent from January.
Global consumer spending on TikTok, which includes Douyin (the Chinese TikTok) on Chinese iOS, reached $592 million in the first eight months of this year. That’s nearly a fifth of the $3 billion in revenues generated by entertainment apps on Apple’s store worldwide.
In the first eight months of this year, TikTok generated nearly $35 million in the US Apple store, which is more than 4 percent of the platform’s entertainment apps’ revenues of $850m. In the Google Store, TikTok is classified as a social app, and U.S. consumers spent about $6.6 million on the app, accounting for 4% of the roughly $181 million generated by that category of apps.
