TikTok was the Second Most Downloaded App in 2019, Surpassing Facebook and Messenger

Alvin Wanjala January 16, 2020

0 1 minute read

TikTok safety in Kenya — TikTok Chesnot/Getty Images)

TikTok has been, with no doubt, one of the most popular apps in 2019. This has been advantageous to the parent company ByteDance – now the world’s most valuable startup – and, on the other side, has attracted security-conscious eyeballs from the US. The company had its fair share of scrutiny in 2019, which is, by the way, still on-going.

However, SensorTower research has released a report on the list of most downloaded apps of 2019, and TikTok emerged second. The app raked in over 700 million downloads globally in 2019, which places it at number two. The list is led by Facebook’s instant messaging app – WhatsApp – which was 2019’s most downloaded app. WhatsApp was downloaded over 850 million times in 2019, according to SensorTower.

Other Facebook-owned platforms like Facebook Messenger and Facebook emerged as number three and four with just over 700 million and just under 700 million downloads, respectively.

According to the report, almost half of TikTok’s first-time downloaders – 45 percent – were from India, which is due to the country’s massive amount of internet users. In fact, TikTok downloads in the final quarter of 2019 hit an all-time high with nearly 220 million installs, representing a 24% increase over Q3 2019 and a 6 percent year over year growth.

WhatsApp also enjoyed a massive number of downloads from the densely populated country. In its report, SensorTower said that WhatsApp recorded year-over-year growth of 39 percent.

General App Market Overview

Worldwide App Store and Google Play Downloads increased by 4.7 percent in the last quarter of 2019 compared to a similar period in the previous year. The App Store accounted for 7.8 Billion downloads while most downloads were made on the Google Play Store – 20.9 Billion – in Q4 2019.