WITH 767M DOWNLOADS, INSTAGRAM SURPASSES TIKTOK AS THE WORLD’S MOST POPULAR APP

Sat 09 March 2024:

Instagram has surpassed TikTok as the world’s most downloaded app, thanks to its copycat video feature Reels, which helped it recover ground lost to its Chinese-owned rival.

After debuting in 2010 alongside reality TV stars like the Kardashians, the photo- and video-sharing app quickly gained popularity and became an integral part of the influencer trend. However, in recent years, the short video platform TikTok has fiercely competed with the app in its own market.

TikTok also faces serious political opposition in the US amid ongoing concern about the ramifications of its Chinese ownership. This week a bipartisan group of US lawmakers introduced legislation giving the Beijing-based ByteDance – TikTok’s parent – about six months to divest the app or face a ban.

The market intelligence company Sensor Tower, which compiled the data, said Instagram’s revival was “likely driven by the popularity of its Reels feature”, as well as its other functions such as photo-sharing and its Stories disappearing-video feature, itself an apparent copy of the Snapchat app.

Instagram’s launch in 2020 of a short-form video feature widely seen as an imitation of TikTok has ultimately helped it stage a fightback. The app was downloaded 767m times worldwide in 2023, a rise of 20% on the previous year, compared with 733m for TikTok, which grew by 4%. TikTok had been the most popular download globally between 2018 and 2022.

Instagram has nearly 1.5 billion monthly active users, according to Sensor Tower, with TikTok at just over 1.1 billion. However, TikTok has more active users, who spend an average of 95 minutes a day on the app, compared with 62 minutes for Instagram.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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