TikTok Revenue Has More Than Tripled in the Past Year

Riding a wave of ramped up international marketing and popularity among influencers, video-based social app TikTok from Beijing's Bytedance saw its highest earning month to date in October. According to Sensor Tower's Store Intelligence estimates, TikTok grew its user spending on in-app purchases some 275 percent or 3.75x year-over-year last month to more than $3.5 million worldwide.

Approximately 42 percent of this revenue, or $1.5 million, came from users in the United States, where spending increased 144 percent year-over-year from October 2017. Users of China's App Store contributed the second-largest amount last month at nearly $1.4 million, or about 39 percent of the total. Note that this figure does not include revenue from Android users in China.

TikTok revenue last month increased about 7 percent worldwide over August, when it merged with Musical.ly, the video-centric social app Bytedance acquired one year ago in November 2017. Revenue in the app is generated by users purchasing coins, which can be used to send emoji-like gifts to others during live streams.

TikTok's gross user spending to date has surpassed $50 million, not including Android in China, on nearly 800 million installs.