TikTok Is The Most Downloaded, Most Watched App In The United States (Report)

Users in the United States and United Kingdom spend more time watching content on TikTok than YouTube.

According to a new report from App Annie, stateside mobile phone users watch an average of 24 hours of TikTok content per month, and an average of 22 hours and 40 minutes of YouTube content per month. In the U.K., users watch 26 hours of content per month on TikTok, and 16 hours of content on YouTube.

These findings reflects trends from App Annie’s July report, which showed that people spend more time using TikTok’s app than YouTube, Facebook, or Netflix’s.

App Annie’s new report also showed that TikTok remains the most downloaded app globally. (It was the top downloaded app across all of 2020, too.) YouTube, on the other hand, fell out of the top 10 most downloaded in 2019: TikTok’s installation competitors include Instagram (owned by Facebook) at No. 2, then Facebook, then WhatsApp (also owned by Facebook), Telegram, Snapchat, Facebook Messenger (shocker: owned by Facebook), CapCut, MX TakaTak, and PicsArt Photo & Video Editor.

“YouTube remains the leader in the streaming, social and photo and video space due to both depth and breadth of engagement,” App Annie says in the report, “but the average time spent per user in TikTok has surpassed YouTube in key markets like the US and UK and could shake up rankings in years to come.”

The report concludes that “Short-video, authentic content and live streaming are pillars to cultivating deep engagement, with live streaming in particular driving growth in time spent.”

TikTok also showed up in the consumer spend category: it’s No. 2 for amount of money users splash out, beaten by YouTube at No. 1. YouTube has floated in the top 10 since 2017 (the year it introduced Super Chat), and TikTok joined the top 10 in 2020 (the year it introduced Coins, which viewers can use to tip creators, and features like charity donation stickers).

App Annie says the increase in user spending on platforms like TikTok, YouTube, and Twitch is because “consumers are opening their wallets to the creator economy at a level we’ve never seen before–a positive sign for the industry.”

It added that in the case of TikTok and Twitch, particularly, user spending is indicative of the “power of the gifting mechanism.”