Chinese App Becomes 2018’s Most Downloaded iPhone App

As statistics show on May 7, Chinese applications are leading in the iPhone applications market. Recent data from an app intelligence firm Sensor Tower shows that in the first quarter of this year, the number of app downloads of Douyin or Tik Tok as it is in known overseas, has reached 45.8 million, surpassing Facebook, Youtube and Instagram to become the most downloaded iPhone app of the quarter.

Business Insider also reported that, “Facebook-owned apps like WhatsApp, Messenger, and Instagram were among the most-downloaded iPhone apps in the world during the first quarter of 2018. But it was a Chinese music video app called Tik Tok that flattened the competition with more than 45 million downloads over the course of the last three months.”

According to Sensor Tower’s data, Facebook grossed about 29.4 million downloads in the first quarter, ranking sixth on the list. Facebook’s WhatsApp, Messenger and Instagram apps rank 3rd to 5th with 33.8 million, 31.3 million, and 31 million downloads respectively. YouTube ranks second, with total downloads of 35.3 million.

Douyin is a music short-video social app that allows users to shoot and edit short videos while adding music and special effects developed by Beijing ByteDance Technology Co., Ltd. According to the official data of Douyin, since it went global in the second half of 2017, Douyin is now covering over 150 countries in the world with more than 100 million monthly active users.

According to public reports, Tik Tok is now a market leader in countries including Japan, Thailand, the Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam and Cambodia. Musical.ly, another app owned by ByteDance has also topped the list of local app stores in America, Germany and France.

This article originally appeared in TechWeb and was translated by Pandaily.