This was first published December 10, in our weekly newsletter Apptopia Insight. To receive insights like this weekly, sign up here.
- The TikTok ban (or sale) seems much more likely to happen
- User behavior on TikTok has not changed
- YouTube has some upside
- Snapchat does not
- Reddit is at least interesting to think about
TikTok lost a challenge against its ban in a federal appeals court, and already influencers are telling their followers where to find them on other platforms. However, there has only been a minor pull back in time spent per day so far. That pull back was from 112 minutes per day – an all-time high – to 108 minutes (a mere eight TikToks!).
If you are really hunting for some evidence of weakness over at TikTok, there is a tiny uptick in user churn in December. This uptick, however, is still lower than churn levels hit in February when the ban first came about.
Still, this ban (or sale) looks likely to happen even if TikTok users have not changed their behavior. We decided to look at YouTube and Snapchat, as those two apps seem to get a lot of attention when the TikTok ban gets mentioned.
YouTube-TikTok cross-app usage
The average YouTube user spends 84 minutes per day on YouTube, which is just enough time to watch “The 39 Steps”…must be a lot of Hitchcock fans on YouTube. For YouTube users who have both YouTube and TikTok, the time spent on YouTube is only 74 minutes (just enough time to watch “Zelig”…are kids these days fans of Woody Allen?), so there is some upside there for YouTube to seize.
However, what most caught my eye was the percentage of YouTube users who also use TikTok: only 54%. I had to double-check my data on that one – TikTok is so ubiquitous an app, I was surprised to see user overlap be that low. This suggests that YouTube and TikTok are supplements, i.e. if you have YouTube, you may not feel like you need TikTok too. That does limit some upside for YouTube, if only half(ish) of their users are on TikTok.
Snapchat-TikTok cross-app usage
While TikTok and YouTube might be substitutes, a similar relationship does not seem to exist for Snapchat. The average Snapchat user spends 33 minutes per day on Snapchat (that is a lot of Snaps) while users who have both Snapchat and TikTok spend 38 minutes per day on Snapchat. It seems unlikely that, were TikTok to be banned, those Snapchat-TikTok users would spend even more time on Snapchat – they are already spending more time than average. On the other hand, 70% of Snapchat users also use TikTok, so the majority of their users will have a gap in their time to fill. If Snapchat can be creative, there is at least a chance for them to grab some of that time.
Reddit-TikTok cross-app usage
Reddit is at least an interesting destination for TikTok users if the app gets banned. While there is no video component to Reddit, there is some entertainment component to reading subreddits. 60% of Reddit users also use TikTok, and those users spend 19 minutes on Reddit compared to the average Reddit user spending 25 minutes. In other words, there is a significant percentage of Reddit users who could spend meaningfully more time for entertainment purposes on the app if TikTok were banned.on the app if TikTok were banned.
