Yesterday, MBW reported that all global streams within Spotify’s Top 200 chart last week (from Friday, March 13 to end of Thursday 19, were down by 226m plays – or 11.0% week-on-week.
Music fans in the United States, meanwhile, were responsible for 1bn fewer interactive audio streams last week (Friday, March 13 through Thursday, March 19), compared to the prior week’s 15.188bn tally, an 8.8% decline.
Yet on-demand video streams of music in the US – across both Apple and YouTube’s platforms – actually rose in the same chart week, climbing 1.3% to 2.73bn.
With large parts of the US being ordered to stay at home, and with consumers looking for ways to entertain themselves while doing so, it appears that another video-led platform is seeing growth amid the Coronavirus crisis.
ByteDance-owned short form video sharing app TikTok saw a 18% week-on-week uplift in downloads in the United States last week (March 16-22), MBW has learned.
For that week, according to new estimates provided to MBW by respected analytics firm Sensor Tower, TikTok was downloaded 2m times in the US, compared to 1.7m the prior week (March 9-15).
“TikTok’s gross US revenue for the week commencing March 16 was $1.1 million – up 34% on the previous week.”
Not only were consumers downloading the app more often, they were also spending more: TikTok’s gross US revenue (user spending) for the week commencing March 16 was $1.1 million – up 34% on the previous week’s gross revenue of $822,000.
Meanwhile, TikTok’s total number of US downloads from the beginning of the month through to the end of the day yesterday (March 23) was 6.2m, up 27% compared to 4.9m downloads in the first 23 days of February.
Gross revenue in the US for March 1-23 was $2.9m – up 21% compared to the prior 23 day period.
This trend didn’t just emerge in the US, either.
At 84.8m, TikTok’s global downloads from March 1-23 were up 5% compared to February 1-23.
Global gross revenue was also up – by 10% – to $46.4m compared to $42m for the same 23-day period in February.
“TikTok’s global downloads for last week (March 16-22) were up by 12%, from 25.4m during the week starting March 9, to 28.5m for the week starting March 16.”
TikTok’s global downloads for last week (March 16-22) were up by 12%, from 25.4m during the week starting March 9, to 28.5m for the week starting March 16.
One blip on an otherwise clear growth trend however, was that in spite of increased downloads and gross revenue across the whole month, week-on-week, global gross revenue was down 2%, from $14.9m for the week of March 9-15 to $14.6m the week of March 16-22.
TikTok’s growth trend amidst the global coronavirus crisis over the last week becomes a lot clearer when you look at the number of downloads estimated by Sensor Tower for Italy, which has been under government-mandated, countrywide lockdown since March 9.
In the European country, estimates Sensor Tower, TikTok was downloaded 237,000 times last week (March 16-22), which represented a 35% increase compared to the prior week (March 9-15).
“TikTok was downloaded 237,000 times in Italy last week (March 16-22), which represented a 35% increase compared to the prior week (March 9-15).”
Total downloads for March 1-23 in Italy were up 14% from 555,000 to 630,000.
Although more consumers in the country downloaded the app between March 1-23 compared to the same 23 days in the prior month, they actually spent less money, with gross revenue falling 34% from $13,700 to $9,100.Music Business Worldwide
