After Trump’s banning of it, TikTok booming in US
At the end of his term as US president, Donald Trump tried to block Chinese-owned social media app TikTok saying it was a national security risk. The attack failed and now, TikTok is on its way to have a larger number of Gen Z users in the US than Facebook-owned Instagram.
The forecast is made by marketing and measurement firm eMarketer that says by the end of 2021, TikTok will have a larger number of Gen Z in the US than Instagram and that it will surpass Snapchat in terms of total users by 2023.
In 2021, TikTok will in the US have 37.3 million Gen Z users (born between 1997 and 2012) who access their accounts at least once per month. For comparison, Instagram will have 33.3 million users within the same demographic, eMarketer said.
AGING USERBASE
“Instagram’s user base is steadily aging,” says Debra Aho Williamson, eMarketer principal analyst. “This year, its fastest-growing age group will be ages 35 to 44 [up 7.2%], while gains will be much slower among teens 12 to 17 [0.7%] and young adults 18 to 24 [2.0%]. However, Gen Z will still make up nearly three in 10 users on Instagram [28.0%] this year, so advertisers can still find them on the platform.”
Snapchat is the leading social network in the US among Gen Z, with 42.0 million users in the group this year. It is expected to maintain that position through 2025 but TikTok will narrow the gap by the end of the forecast period.
We have increased our user projections for TikTok, now that the threat of it being banned in the US has died down. Total users in the US will grow 18.3% this year to reach 78.7 million. As a result, TikTok is now on pace to surpass Snapchat in terms of total users by 2023. At that point, TikTok will have 89.7 million users compared with Snapchat’s 89.5 million, eMarketer said.
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