Among social and video streaming apps, YouTube and TikTok are battling it out for eyeballs, but TikTok has now surpassed YouTube for average time spent per user in the US and the UK, according to data from App Annie.
The company compared app trends in Q4 2019, before the pandemic took hold here, to Q2 2021, when markets started to open up. App Annie finds that “social habits formed during the pandemic are sticking around — and deepening.”
As of May 2021, TikTok users in the US spend an average of 24.5 hours per month using the app, while users across the pond are at 26 hours per month. For YouTube, it’s about 23.1 hours in the US. The average US user is spending 50% more time in TikTok on Android phones (it’s 80% in the UK) compared to December 2019.
YouTube still holds an edge globally. It’s the No. 1 video-streaming app by time spent in all markets except China. In Japan and South Korea, it has “a sizable 2.5x lead over TikTok in average time spent per user in May 2021.” In South Korea, the average user spends about 40 hours per month with TikTok only averaging about 18 hours per month.
But TikTok’s growing popularity—App Annie predicts it’ll top 1.2 billion average monthly active users this year—”could represent a competitive threat,” App Annie says. In 2020, it increased its US user base by 85.3% compared to the previous year, according to Statista. And TikTok parent company ByteDance reported 2020 revenue at $34.3 billion, an 111% increase from 2019.
App Annie says audio-only apps like Clubhouse also had a breakout Q1 and Q2, despite being an iOS-exclusive until May 2021 and invite-only.
