TikTok recorded extraordinary growth in India during the first quarter of 2019. Sensor Tower estimated that the app was installed there by 88.6 million first-time users between January and March, a figure commonly rounded to 90 million. India alone accounted for almost half of TikTok’s estimated worldwide additions during the quarter.
The numbers require a careful description. Sensor Tower was measuring first-time mobile installs observed through Apple’s App Store and Google Play, not monthly active users or 90 million people proven to use the service every day. The estimates also excluded third-party Android stores. Even with those limitations, the scale of the increase was striking.
TikTok’s strongest first quarter
Worldwide, TikTok added an estimated 188 million new users in the first three months of 2019. That was 70 percent more than the 110 million first-time installs recorded in the same quarter a year earlier. Sensor Tower ranked TikTok as the third most-installed app globally across the two major stores, behind only WhatsApp and Messenger.
India supplied 47 percent of the total. The 88.6 million figure was about 8.2 times the app’s Indian installs in the first quarter of 2018, and Google Play generated nearly 99 percent of the new Indian downloads. By comparison, the United States produced approximately 13.2 million first-time installs during the quarter, although that represented strong year-over-year growth of its own.
The report also showed that attention was beginning to produce revenue. Sensor Tower estimated worldwide in-app spending of $18.9 million during the quarter, more than three times the amount from the same period in 2018. That spending was concentrated in the United States and China rather than India, illustrating the difference between a market that drives audience growth and one that generates direct consumer revenue.
Why India became so important
TikTok’s lightweight video format fit a mobile-first audience. Users could create short clips with popular songs, film dialogue, effects and simple editing tools without needing expensive equipment. The service also gave performers from outside India’s largest media centers a route to national visibility, while recommendations could spread a video beyond an existing network of friends.
ByteDance promoted the app aggressively, and TikTok’s merger with Musical.ly had helped consolidate an international audience under one brand. Support for local languages and a constant supply of participatory challenges made the product accessible to new internet users as well as people already active on Facebook, Instagram or YouTube.
The growth arrived alongside a serious regulatory dispute. On April 3, the Madras High Court directed India’s government to prohibit new TikTok downloads, citing concerns about inappropriate content and child safety. ByteDance appealed and argued that a broad restriction would harm lawful expression. The conflict placed TikTok’s most productive source of new installs at risk just as the quarterly figures demonstrated its importance.
Sensor Tower estimated that TikTok had exceeded 1.1 billion cumulative App Store and Google Play installs by this point. The first-quarter report showed that India was not a secondary expansion market; it was the principal engine of the app’s growth. It also exposed the company’s vulnerability. A platform adding nearly 90 million Indian installs in three months had much to gain from the country, but a court or app-store restriction there could immediately reshape its global trajectory.
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