Indians spent more than 5.5 billion hours on TikTok in 2019: Report

There's no stopping to TikTok's popularity in India. According to a new report from data analytics firm App Annie, Indians spent 5.5 billion hours on the short-video sharing platform. This is significantly higher than 900 million hours Indian spent in 2018.

An Economic Times report citing App Annie says TikTok's monthly active users surged by 90% to 81 million as of December 2019. India was one of its top markets globally, only second to China.

TikTok is also narrowing gap with Facebook which still is the world's largest social networking platform. According to the report, users spent 25.5 billion hours on Facebook, posting a 15% growth. The monthly active user base rose to 224 million. Instagram also registered a growth as its monthly active user base increased to 137 million as of December. Instagram saw a faster growth than Facebook at 40%.

"In December 2019, the time spent on Tiktok in India was more than the next 11 countries combined. It is not only that there are more people engaging, but there is deeper engagement per person," Lexi Sydow, senior market insights manager, App Annie is quoted as saying.

ALSO READ: TikTok hires Microsoft IP chief as general counsel

The latest report corroborates the recent reports from Sensor Tower which also revealed a similar meteoric growth of TikTok in markets like India. Sensor Tower in its report said TikTok was the second most downloaded app across Google Play Store and Apple App Store after WhatsApp.

It'll be interesting to see how TikTok sustains the growth in 2020. The app has frequently come under scanner around the world over a variety of issues. The US Army recently banned its soldiers from using the Chinese social networking app.

TikTok will also have to brace for more competition this year. While Instagram is working on TikTok-like Reels, Vine founder recently launched a six-second video app called "Byte." Google has also introduced a 'Tangi' app, a short-form video application for tutorials.