In a significant shift in the social media landscape, the Chinese short-form video hosting service TikTok has overtaken Facebook as the most valuable social media platform for the first time since its introduction to the market. According to a recent study by Malta-based analytical website Business2community, TikTok has grown by 11% more than Facebook in the first quarter of 2023 and is now valued at $65.7 billion, while Facebook dropped to $58.8 billion from $100 billion, according to data from Brand Finance’s annual Global 500.
Despite concerns in the West that the app could be used for spying by the Chinese government, TikTok’s upward trend continues, with over 1 billion daily active users worldwide. The United States has the largest audience for TikTok with 135 million active users, followed by Indonesia with 99.07 million and Brazil with 73.58 million.
TikTok is particularly popular among Gen Z users, who make up 60% of its user base, and 57% of its users are female. It has also become the first non-Facebook product to surpass three billion online downloads. The app’s popularity is also evident in the fact that it has been found that TikTok videos receive 44% more comments than Instagram reels, and twice as many TikTok videos are uploaded than Instagram reels. Additionally, many children aged between 4 and 18 prefer TikTok over YouTube, and 63% of app users do not have a Twitter account, while 40% are not on Facebook.
However, the poll conducted in the United States between October 29 to November 1, 2021, with 2,200 respondents aged 18 years and older revealed that one-third of adults in the United States do not like the app. Approximately 34% of the demographic did not approve of their children using TikTok unsupervised.
