TikTok User Spending Hit a New High in May, Growing 500% Year-Over-Year

Social video app TikTok from Beijing's ByteDance continues to exhibit significant revenue growth from in-app user purchases, reaching $9 million worldwide last month outside of China's third-party Android stores, Sensor Tower Store Intelligence estimates show.

This total was up 500 percent year-over-year from the $1.5 million spent in May 2018 and 22 percent month-over-month compared to April's $7.4 million. TikTok's gross earnings from the purchase of coins was at $6 million in January, with users spending 50 percent more than that last month.

iOS users in China spent the largest portion of last month's $9 million total at close to 65 percent or nearly $5.9 million. Users of both the App Store and Google Play in the United States contributed nearly $2 million, or about 22 percent of the app's gross May revenue. India, which represents the app's largest user base, accounted for only half a percent of spending, or about $45,000 total.

First-time installs of TikTok rebounded somewhat last month, following a two-week governmental ban in India during April which cost the app upwards of 15 million new users based on Sensor Tower estimates. Close to 56 million users globally installed TikTok for the first time last month, which represented a 27 percent increase over April but was flat compared to May 2018. New installs of the app were down 21 percent from January's 70.8 million total. India still accounted for the largest potion of new TikTok installs last month at 53 percent or approximately 29.7 million.

Sensor Tower data puts life-to-date installs of TikTok at 1.2 billion and user spending at $97.4 million, with the app poised to cross the $100 million gross revenue mark later this month.