There seems to be no stopping TikTok’s exponential growth across the globe.
The ByteDance-owned short video app has amassed more than 2 billion downloads on Apple’s App Store and Google Play Store combined, a milestone that comes just five months after the app hit the 1.5 billion download mark, research firm SensorTower said on Wednesday.
In the first quarter of 2020, TikTok was downloaded over 315 million times globally, more than any other app for the period, SensorTower said. The figures did not include third-party app stores.
SensorTower partly attributed TikTok’s download growth to the global coronavirus pandemic which has confined people around the world to their homes and increased the consumption of online content on mobile devices.
Users based in India seemed the most obsessed with TikTok, with 30.3% of the app’s total downloads coming from the South Asian country, followed by China with 9.7%, according to SensorTower. The U.S. was the third-largest download source, with 8.2%, despite the fact that some American lawmakers have urged government employees to stop using the app on government-issued devices due to national security concerns.
As the app expands its global footprint, TikTok is reaping huge benefits from its users, who have so far spent $456.7 million on the app, compared with $175 million five months ago, SensorTower said. About 72.3% of TikTok’s total revenue came from China, where the app is known as Douyin. The U.S. ranked second in terms of user spending with 19%.
Over the past few months, TikTok has taken steps to answer criticisms about the app including establishing a content moderation committee in a push to ease U.S. concerns over data security and how content is moderated.
– This article originally appeared on Caixin Global.
