Time Spent on TikTok Continues to Soar Above Its Rivals

February 14, 2024—Worldwide TikTok users are spending more time on the app each month than users of LinkedIn, Pinterest, Facebook Messenger, Snapchat, Telegram and X spend on those apps ... COMBINED.

When I was at Insider Intelligence, one of my favorite projects was our digital media time-spent forecast. Every year, as I studied the numbers that forecaster Oscar Orozco and his team put together, I would think, "Surely the amount of time TikTok users spend on the app will plateau this year." And while the growth has slowed, it hasn't reached a plateau yet.

➡️ US adult TikTok users will spend 55 minutes per day on the app this year, according to Insider Intelligence's June 2023 forecast, up from 53.8 minutes in 2023.

➡️ Even more startling: TikTok is on track to become the US's top social app in total daily minutes next year, surpassing Facebook. US TikTok users will spend more than 5 billion DAILY minutes next year.

And that's just adults. The forecast doesn't include teens. And, it's just the US.

So, how does time spent on TikTok look on a global basis?

This chart from DataReportal's 2024 Global Overview report shows that it's going to take a lot to slow down the train.

The data, sourced from data.ai, represents the monthly time Android users spent on each platform in Q3 2023. It doesn't include China, so time spent on Douyin is not included in the TikTok figure.

💪🏻 In addition to gobbling up more minutes than 7 platforms combined, TikTok time adds up to more than time spent on Instagram and WhatsApp combined.

💪🏻 TikTok time is also over 20% higher than YouTube time.

You could point out (and I know the data nerds have already done the math on this) that Meta's four apps add up to far more time than TikTok. Which they do.

You could also argue that Facebook ranking 3rd-highest in this list is extraordinary for a 20-year-old app. Which it is.

But the massive lead TikTok has doesn't seem to be disruptable, unless there's an uptick in users becoming annoyed with all the promotions for TikTok Shop products they see in their feed.