TikTok, Facebook, Instagram most downloaded apps last year

TikTok, Facebook and Instagram were the top three most downloaded social media applications globally last year.

TikTok, a video creating app, had more than 82.3 million downloads, representing a 13 percent increase from December 2018.

According to a report by marketing intelligence company, Sensor Tower, India and Brazil were among the leading downloaders of the social media apps which contributed to 37 percent and 10 percent respectively of the global downloads of TikTok and 21 percent and 10 percent of global downloads of Facebook.

The global download of Facebook in the period were 60.9 million, followed by Instagram, Likee and Snapchat.

The top three social media apps have maintained the top three positions in the past year, with TikTok leading for most of the year, while Facebook and Instagram switching between second and third positions. However, for December 2019, Instagram was the second most installed app by Apple Store users while Facebook was third. For Google Play users in the same month, Facebook was second while Instagram was third.

The report further reveals that TikTok has more than 1.65 billion downloads to date, with new users added in 2019 representing 13 percent year-over-year growth from the 655 million installs the app registered in 2018.

“The fourth quarter of 2019 was TikTok’s best quarter yet, with its 219 million installs representing 6 percent year growth from the same period in 2018. TikTok was the second most downloaded app across the App Store and Google Play globally in 2019, surpassed only by WhatsApp’s 849 million downloads,” the report stated.

Other apps that also had many installs include Twitter, Helo, and Pintrest. YouTube remained the top grossing photo and video application globally with more than Sh5.8 billion ($58 million) in user spending. A large proportion of this revenue was from the United States at 56 percent, Japan at nine percent and Britain at four percent.