Is TikTok losing users?
A new report shows TikTok losing ground among growing competition from YouTube Shorts, Instagram Reels and Facebook Reels.
Music consumer research and analyst service, MusicWatch’s latest audiocensus study shows the percentage share of the top short-form video platforms in Q4 2023 and Q4 2024.
TikTok was the most popular platform in 2023 and 2024, however with growing competition from YouTube, Instagram and Facebook, this may not be the case for long. Year-over-year, TikTok dropped its share by 5%, from 34% to 29%. YouTube Shorts comes in second at 26%, up from 2% the year prior. In third and fourth place are Instagram and Facebook respectively. Owning both of these platforms, Meta holds a combined share of 36%.
Perhaps more surprisingly, the biggest share dropped came among TikTok’s core audience of 18-24 year olds. This demographic saw a large 9% fall from 51% to 42%. Instagram and YouTube picked up most of the difference. Among older users, TikTok lost 4% in 45+ year olds, while YouTube and Facebook increased their shares.
In terms of music, in January there were 103 million music listeners on social video apps, an 80% rise since 2021. These users on average spend 6.5 hours per week with music on social video apps, or roughly an hour per day. This doesn’t include time spent with non-music genres, such as comedy and how-to tips. Some of these users are intentionally seeking out songs and artists on social platforms, while other users are consumer music passively through the algorithm-driven feeds.
This all comes as uncertainty around TikTok in the US continues, with a potential ban on the horizon. In January, President Trump issued a 75-day extension, enabling the platform to stay around until at least April. Will Instagram’s potential standalone Reels app help increase their share in the short-form video market?