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TikTok’s user growth in the United States has slowed to a crawl as more people abandon the social video app, the Wall Street Journal reported Sunday, citing people familiar with the matter. Competition from Meta platforms (NASDAQ:META), whose Instagram Reels is gaining popularity and the breakdown of licensing negotiations with Universal Music Group is also a headache.
The decline in users is especially evident among younger consumers who were among the first to embrace the app’s endless feed of user-generated videos. The average number of U.S. monthly users aged 18 to 24 fell nearly 9% from 2022 to 2023, data from mobile analytics firm Data.ai shows. Amid growth among older age groups, TikTok has about 170 million users, up from 150 million last year.
TikTok, owned by Chinese technology company ByteDance, met its ad sales goals for the second half of last year but did not exceed them, the Journal reported, citing its sources. TikTok and ByteDance are not publicly traded, limiting the amount of financial information about their operations. TikTok is not profitable, the Journal reported.
ByteDance is facing renewed calls from US lawmakers this month to ban TikTok due to national security and data privacy concerns. TikTok said it had not turned over the data to the Chinese government and would not do so if asked.
The House voted overwhelmingly on Wednesday to pass a bill to ban TikTok unless ByteDance sells the app’s U.S. operations to a company that is not subject to China’s data-sharing laws. The bill is subject to further debate in the Senate and President Biden has said he will sign the legislation if it reaches his desk.