Meta’s app fights back against its Chinese-owned rival with the help of its copycat video feature, Reels
Instagram has surpassed TikTok as the world’s most downloaded app, thanks to its copycat video feature Reels, which helped it regain lost ground against its Chinese-owned rival.
The photo- and video-sharing app gained immense popularity after its 2010 launch, especially with influencers like the Kardashians. However, it has faced tough competition in recent years from TikTok, the short video platform.
Nevertheless, Instagram’s introduction in 2020 of a short-form video feature, widely perceived as an imitation of TikTok, has significantly contributed to its resurgence. In 2023, the app was downloaded 767 million times worldwide, marking a 20% increase from the previous year. This surpassed TikTok’s 733 million downloads, which grew by 4%. TikTok had held the title of the most globally downloaded app from 2018 to 2022.
According to the market intelligence company Sensor Tower, which gathered the data, Instagram’s resurgence is “likely attributable to the popularity of its Reels feature,” as well as its other functionalities like photo-sharing and its Stories disappearing-video feature, which is reminiscent of the Snapchat app.
Farhad Divecha, owner and managing director of the UK-based digital marketing agency Accuracast, stated that Instagram has benefited from swiftly responding to the TikTok threat. He also noted that its broader demographic appeal has played a role in its success.
“I believe one advantage Instagram has is its appeal to a wider audience demographic, without the ‘it’s for kids only’ stigma that some associate with TikTok,” he stated.
According to Sensor Tower, Instagram has nearly 1.5 billion monthly active users, while TikTok has just over 1.1 billion. However, TikTok boasts more active users, who spend an average of 95 minutes per day on the app, compared to 62 minutes for Instagram.
Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook and the CEO of Meta, Instagram’s parent company, has recognized TikTok as a significant competitive challenge in recent years. In 2022, he acknowledged that his company’s apps faced many competitors for user attention, noting that platforms like TikTok were “growing very quickly.” Additionally, reports from the same year indicated that Meta had hired a Republican consulting firm to sow public distrust around its competitor.
TikTok is also encountering significant political resistance in the US, fueled by ongoing worries about the implications of its Chinese ownership. This week, a bipartisan group of US lawmakers proposed legislation that would require ByteDance, the Beijing-based parent company of TikTok, to divest the app within approximately six months or risk a ban.
US lawmakers, as well as politicians in other Western countries, are worried that user data from TikTok could be accessed by the Chinese government—a claim that TikTok has repeatedly refuted.