The Chinese Version of TikTok Has hit an Impressive 400 Million Active Users

TikTok has taken the world by storm, being the most popular social media app for Gen Z’s, it is even the most downloaded app in app store beating Instagram and YouTube. The video sharing app has amassed an impressive 400 million daily active users, compared to last years report which showed 250 million users.

TikTok is a platform where you can create short, funny, creative videos for your friends and audience. Given the alleged security controversy of the Chinese based app, the Navy has restricted some of its members from using the app with fears of information falling in the wrong hands.

Despite the app becoming a global phenomenon, permeating through cultural boundaries, there are still some noticeable differences in how the app is used when comparing the Chinese and U.S market. Douyin, Tik Tok’s sister company in China, is driven with more knowledge-based contents, with 14.89 million “knowledge-based content videos” shared on the app last year. Whereas for the U.S market it is more entertainment centred, with dance videos having a much bigger appeal for younger people. Interestingly, dance videos in China are generated by those that were born in the 60’s!

Katherine Wu, an investor at New York-based firm Notation Capital, says “Things that trend in these two countries are insanely different. For example: knowledge-based content is extremely popular in China, and less so in the U.S. Also, this was wild to me: those creators that did the most dance videos in China are users born in the 60s (!!), whereas in the US, it seems that it’s mostly teenagers who are creating the dances,”

The app shows no sign of slowing down, with the app reaching 1 billion downloads worldwide for both App store and Google play, and is available in 155 countries. It is also available in 75 languages, covering a large portion of the global population.