TikTok
Douyin's sibling outside China: short video, live streams and shopping
First principle
People have always wanted something to fill a spare moment. TikTok's feed is built on what you watch, not whom you know, so a newcomer with no friends there finds things to enjoy at once.
The needs it meets
- EntertainmentCore
- Passing time and unwinding, carried off by stories, music and video.
- Being seen
- Making things and showing yourself; being seen and approved of.
Why it wins
- Recommending by interest rather than by friendship meant it never needed your friends to be there first, so it could start from zero in country after country.
- A video from a brand new account with no followers can still reach a crowd, so everyone has a reason to post and the supply never ends.
- Any sound or song can be reused by everyone, so a joke or a dance spreads fast.
- LIVE gifts and TikTok Shop let viewers spend on the spot: a gift for a streamer, or an order straight from the video.
What keeps it ahead
- The feed
- No choosing, just scrolling; it learns what you like.
- Endless supply
- Something new every day: uploads, a licensed library or AI.
How it makes money
AdsIn app purchasesCommerce
It earns from ads, LIVE gifts and commission on shop sales; it is third on the world grossing list mainly because users buy coins in the app and turn them into gifts for streamers.
What a small team can take from it
TikTok shows videos from accounts with no followers to strangers, which makes it the cheapest place for a small team to test demand: post the product in real use a few times a week and let views and comments tell you.
This week
- World: top grossing apps, number 7, in 6 of 10 countriesUS App Store 2 · UK App Store 2 · Germany App Store 2 · Brazil App Store 2 · Mexico App Store 2 · US Google Play 2
- World: top free apps, number 10, in 6 of 10 countriesUS Google Play 6 · Germany Google Play 6 · France Google Play 6 · Mexico Google Play 6 · UK Google Play 8 · Brazil Google Play 14
updated 29 October 2026
- Developer
- TikTok Ltd.
- Category
- App · Entertainment
- Stores
- App Store, Google Play
- First in a list
- 29 October 2026
Sources
This is our analysis and judgement, drafted by an AI agent from the store pages and public sources and read by a person before it went up. Every figure has a source; where there is none, we give no figure. Found a mistake? Write to [email protected].