TikTok regains its spot as most downloaded non-gaming app in Dec

Chinese short video sharing app TikTok, which has been in the news with bans in some countries and even a threat of a buyout, has regained its top position as the most downloaded non-gaming app across the world in December 2020.

According to data revealed by Sensor Tower, TikTok was downloaded over 56 million times last month. The top two countries contributing with the largest number of TikTok downloads were Douyin in China with 11% followed by the United States at 10%. 

In November, Facebook-owned WhatsApp had dethroned TikTok to become the most installed non-gaming app worldwide.

It’s worth noting that TikTok was banned in India on June 29. After China, India was the top destination for TikTok in terms of app installs followed by the US. Even after several attempts by the Trump government in the US to impose restrictions, TikTok was granted a preliminary injunction in December that prevented the app from being banned in the country.

TikTok was on the top spot in terms of the number of downloads for 10 months in the entire year of 2020. Video conferencing app Zoom and WhatsApp had overtaken the short video app in April and November.

After TikTok, Facebook was the second most installed non-gaming app worldwide last month with close to 50 million installs. India contributed with 24% downloads followed by the U.S. at 8%.

WhatsApp, Instagram and ZOOM were the other three in the top five most installed non-gaming apps worldwide for the month.

Ever since the ban on TikTok in India, over a dozen homegrown apps have been able to fill the void and grabbed consumers attention in the past 6 months. ShareChat’s Moj, Dailyhunt’s Josh, MX TakaTak, Glance’s Roposo have emerged as an alternative to TikTok in India and have garnered several million downloads since the ban on the Chinese app.

These apps have also managed to raise large rounds from tech giants such as Google. While Dailyhunt and InMobi’s Glance raised their recent rounds led by Google, Twitter-backed ShareChat also is in talks with the Alphabet-owned company and Snap Inc. to raise a $200 million round at a valuation of over $1 billion.