(Hypebot) — TikTok outperforms YouTube and Facebook in the US in January, according to a new report from Guggenheim Partners and Apptopia. Unofficial app stores are seeing up to 2000 TikTok downloads per hour.
‘Banned’ TikTok still outperforms YouTube, Facebook in U.S.
American TikTok users averaged 107 minutes per day on the app in January, despite its uncertain status and an ongoing TikTok Apple and Android app store ban.
TikTok still easily outperforms YouTube, where users spent 87 minutes a day and Facebook, which averaged 63 minutes per day. TikTok’s averages were boosted up by Superusers with 47% of daily users scrolling the app for at least 61 minutes each day, according to the study.
On his first day in office President Trump signed an executive order giving TikTok until early April to find a U.S. buyer or face a permanent ban.
Unofficial TikTok App Downloads Soar
With Apple and Google still banning new TikTok app downloads, new users are turning to “sideloading” to add the app to new devices. That means using a third-party sites, which some call black markets, rather than official app stores.
One sideload source, Signulous, says 120,000 people have used it to get TikTok onto iPhones. Neil Pomperleau, from the company, shared screenshots with the BBC that showed more than 2,000 downloads per hour at times.
MORE: TikTok What’s Happening Now: Insights from Music Marketers
Bruce Houghton is the Founder and Editor of Hypebot, a Senior Advisor at Bandsintown, a Berklee College Of Music professor and founder of the Skyline Artists Agency
