The TikTok app surpassed 2.5 billion downloads globally this week, according to app analysis outfit Sensor Tower.
The social video sharing application is most popular in India, followed by China (where it operates as a clone of the TikTok app called Douyin) and then the United States. Though the app was recently banned in India, after the country’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology said he received many complaints about “misuse and transmission of user data” to servers outside the country, India still accounts for the majority of downloads.
Since its 2017 launch in the U.S., TikTok has been downloaded over 206.7 million times, Sensor Tower analyst Stephanie Chan told TheWrap.
TikTok’s overall global operations remain in full swing despite recent national security controversies in both India and the United States. President Trump moved to block TikTok this summer in the U.S., saying the app posed a security threat to Americans because of its close ties to China’s communist government.
TikTok has denied ever sharing data with China’s government, even though if push came to shove, China’s laws stipulate it would have to. Trump’s executive order looked to ban the app from the U.S. unless it reached a deal with an American company to sell off its U.S. assets. A deal with Oracle to sell the U.S. assets of the company remains stalled.
Sean Burch contributed to this report.
