TikTok No.1 Downloaded App At Apple And Google

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Published
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TikTok No.1 Downloaded App At Apple And Google

© Anatoliy Sizov / iStock Unreleased via Getty Images

The most downloaded app in the United States last year was TikTok, when measured against combined downloads across iOS + Google Play. The video-sharing social network is one of the China-based technologies the Trump Administration wants to ban, but so far courts have blocked the attempt.

TikTok’s success in the U.S. has been particularly impressive because its origins are outside the U.S. Other large social networks which include Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat were created in American, and are owned by American companies. TikTok’s user base in the U.S. may be close to Twitter’s.

TikTok was downloaded 89 million times last year in the U.S. according to research firm Apptopia. That puts it ahead of video conferencing app Zoom. The use of Zoom has pushed shares of its parent, Zoom Video Communications, Inc. up by 381% in the last year. It has a market cap of $100 billion.

The next three most downloaded apps are owned by Facebook. Instagram had 62 million. Facebook Messenger had 61.7 million, and Facebook had 53 million. Behind them on the list of the Top 10 most downloaded apps were CashApp (52 million), Snapchat (51 million), Disney+ (45 million, WhatsApp (44.8 million), and Netflix (44.7 million).

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Apptopia researchers commented “Sadly, there are no real surprises here. Four of the apps on both charts are Facebook owned. Newcomers include Zoom and Google Meet, enabling us to have remote meetings. For the US, Cash App is the only finance focused app to land in the top 10.”

The Disney+ number shows its ascendance as one of the top streaming services. The Walt Disney Company claims that, at the end of the year, it had 73.7 million subscribers. And, the company said, that figure was rising quickly. It still remains behind market leaders Amazon Prime and Netflix. However, the number shows how much it has challenged its older rivals. Disney+ is less than 2 years old. It is also a sign that people have an interest in streaming on smartphones.

Among the conclusions the Apptopia data beg is how much the COVID-19 pandemic has affected app download patterns. A look at the list shows that the answer is a great deal.

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Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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