For the first time since its introduction in the social media market, Chinese short-form video hosting service TikTok has overtaken Meta-owned Facebook as the Most Valuable Social Media. This is according to a study conducted by Malta-based analytical website Business2community.

Analysts found that TikTok grew 11 per cent higher than Facebook, according to data from the first quarter of the 2023, which also reported that TikTok is now valued at $65.7 billion, while Facebook dropped from $100 billion to $58.8 billion citing data by Brand Finance’s annual Global 500.

It also become the first non-Facebook product to surpass three billion online downloads.

TikTok continues upward trend despite fear by the governments in the West that China might use the app to spy on their territory while some of them have started banning the use of the platform on government-issued devices. Data shows that TikTok still boasts of over one billion daily active users worldwide.

Other past studies also revealed TikTok videos get 44 per cent more comments than Instagram reels and twice as many TikTok videos are uploaded more than Instagram reels. Also, many children (ages of 4-18) prefer TikTok over YouTube while 63 per cent of the app users do not have a Twitter account and 40 per cent are not on Facebook.

The United States has TikTok’s largest audience with 135 million active users in which most of them are between the ages of 10 to 19, while Indonesia is second with 99.07 million and Brazil third with 73.58 million.

In 2020, the United Kingdom reported more than 17 million users.

According to demographics, 60 per cent of TikTok users are Gen Z (born 1997 to 2013) while Millennials (born between 1981 and 1996) make up approximately 35 percent of TikTok, that is according to data from the second quarter of 2023. 

Also, 57 per cent of TikTok users are female while 43 per cent are male as of the first quarter of 2022.

Meanwhile, one-third of adults in the United States revealed they do not like the app, which is approximately 34 per cent of the demographic, according to a poll conducted in the country between October 29 to November 1, 2021 with 2,200 respondents aged 18 years and older.

A 2022 poll also showed that 68 per cent of parents living in the United States do not approve of their children using TikTok unsupervised.