TikTok, the Video social networking platform has attracted a young audience and has surpassed 1 billion monthly active users worldwide. Current user levels represent a 45% jump from mid-2020.
The Chinese company, ByteDance, announced the milestone in a blog post. “TikTok has become a beloved part of people around the world because of the creativity and authenticity of our creators,” the post said.
Developed by creativity by sharing on other applications, TikTok attracts young people with its attractive combination of fast cuts, music and creative acting. TikTok launched in the US in 2017, a few years after ByteDance was founded.
The collection of user data has put TikTok in the “hot seat” with the US government under President Donald Trump. Officials in the Trump Administration see TikTok as a security hazard and a tool for the Chinese government to use to gather sensitive information from Americans.
In 2020, Trump issued an order forcing ByteDance to sell TikTok’s US operations to the US corporation. Large corporations including Oracle and Walmart entered negotiations to buy back the ownership, but TikTok and ByteDance successfully rejected the executive order in court. President Biden, after being sworn in last January, ordered a review of TikTok’s situation and shelved the deal.
Currently, the US, Europe, Brazil and Southeast Asia are the biggest markets for this popular short video app.
TikTok has enjoyed a surge in users around the world over the past few years, despite the regulatory scrutiny TikTok is facing in the US and other regions.
Previously, the company said TikTok had about 55 million global users in January 2018. That number had grown to more than 271 million in December 2018, 508 million in December 2019 and 689 million in July. 2020.
Facebook had 2.9 billion monthly active users as of the end of June 2021, according to the company’s latest quarterly report.
Earlier, TikTok said it had surpassed 2 billion global downloads in August 2020.
Video sharing platform owned by Chinese tech giant ByteDance. TikTok appointed ByteDance Chief Financial Officer Shouzi Chew, a Singapore citizen, as the company’s new chief executive officer earlier this year.