TikTok and its Chinese version Douyin are making big money during the lockdown. This has been mentioned by Sensor Tower in its latest report for the month of April. Both the apps topped the charts in the world for highest revenue earned via mobile apps.
The report states that in-app purchases through these popular social media apps have pushed them ahead of Netflix and YouTube in the list. In April during the lockdown period in the country, both the apps revenue soared to $78 million. Interestingly, majority of this revenue came from Douyin in China, while some through TikTok in the US.
This is surprising because, as per the latest available data, TikTok has over 600 million users from India. But it seems like the country’s userbase is still not keen on making purchases through the app. The revenue is earned when a person spends virtual currency to support their favourite creators. Both TikTok and Douyin have used this model to monetise.
The report also mentions both TikTok and Douyin recorded 315 million downloads globally. This is a big increase on the 187 million downloads they had in 2019. This clearly suggests ByteDance-owned platforms have been a big hit among users during the lockdown.
TikTok India faces backlash
However, in India, the platform was facing backlash from millions this month. The app was downgraded from four to 1-star on Google Play. Many users shared their sentiment towards the app on social media, and claimed to have uninstalled the app. By doing so, they were giving TikTok 1-star ratings.
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This was quickly rectified by Google, and as per reports, the company deleted millions of negative reviews of TikTok from Google Play store. This ensured that TikTok’s rating improved from 2.6 to 4.3 in the country.