TikTok comes out on top for yet another month in the App Store

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U.S. investigations of TikTok gather steam.
TikTok was the top, most downloaded, non-gaming app in the App Store last month.
Photo: Kon Karampelas/Unsplash CC

TikTok has completed yet another victory lap as the most downloaded, non-gaming title in the App Store, this time for the month of May. According to app analytics platform Sensor Tower, TikTok enjoyed more than 80 million monthly installs across both iOS and Android that month. This time, Brazil was the no. 1 market for TikTok, followed by China, where the app is called Douyin.

On iOS, TikTok was followed by YouTube in second place, then Instagram, then video editing app CapCut, then WhatsApp, Facebook, Zoom, Messenger, Google Maps, and Gmail rounding out the rest of the top 10.

Rankings were based on Sensor Tower’s own data, recorded between May 1 and May 30, 2021. They cover all non-gaming apps on both iOS and Google Play. They do not cover apps which come preinstalled on devices. TikTok has been the top app every month on the App Store for more than the past year. The only month it briefly dropped to no. 2 was August, when it was overtaken by YouTube, before returning to the top spot.

Top May apps
Here’s what ruled the App Store roost in May.
Photo: Sensor Tower

Another eventful month for TikTok

While these figures show yet another month at the top for TikTok, May was nonetheless an eventful month for the video-sharing app. At the end of May, Zhang Yiming, CEO and co-founder of TikTok maker ByteDance, stepped down as boss. He is replaced by co-founder Liang Rubo, currently the company’s head of human resources. Thirty-eight-year-old Zhang said that he would be instead focusing on “long-term strategy” for the company.

“The size and scale of ByteDance means that this was always likely to happen, and Yiming has always delegated some elements of the business to others. But it’s still a shocking moment for ByteDance,” Chris Stokel-Walker, author of the upcoming book TikTok Boom: China, the US and the Superpower Race for Social Media, told Cult of Mac at the time.

Earlier this month, TikTok was briefly overtaken in the free iPhone apps chart by Paste Keyboard. Ironically, that app was made popular due to… TikTok. The copy-and-pasting app went viral due to exposure it received on the ultra-popular app. In doing so, it weirdly confirmed again just what a big deal TikTok is.

Do you think any app will be able to permanently dislodge TikTok from its current App Store-dominating position in 2021? If so, which app will it be? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

Source: Sensor Tower

 

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