- TikTok's own ad tools reported reach of well over 2 billion adults a month in April 2026 (DataReportal), but GWI and Similarweb data show flat or falling use, so treat it as an advertising figure.
- In the US, 37% of adults use TikTok (Pew, Feb to Jun 2025) and the ad audience is 153 million people aged 18+ (DataReportal, late 2025).
- Among US adults, 18 to 29 use TikTok most (63%, against 12% of those 65+). Among US teens 13 to 17 it is 68%, from a separate Pew survey.
- TikTok Shop sold an estimated $64.3 billion worldwide in 2025, $15.1 billion of it in the US (Momentum Works). Widely quoted revenue and download figures could not be traced to a primary source.
- On 22 January 2026 TikTok's US operations moved to a joint venture about 80% held by non-Chinese investors, with Oracle, Silver Lake and MGX as the managing group.
The most defensible TikTok statistics are these: TikTok's own ad tools said its ads could reach well over 2 billion adults a month in April 2026 (DataReportal), and 37% of US adults say they use TikTok (Pew Research Center, 2025). This page keeps a primary source and a date next to every figure, and we re-checked each one on 5 October 2026.
Most TikTok statistics on the web get copied and rounded up until nobody can say where they started. We dropped anything we could not trace to a named study, a company announcement or TikTok's own data, and we say where sources disagree. The search numbers in the last sections come from TikTok's own Creator Search Insights, pulled through TokConnect.
How many people use TikTok?
TikTok's own planning tools said in April 2026 that its ads reach "well in excess of 2 billion" people aged 18 and over each month, up more than 8% in three months, according to DataReportal's Digital 2026 Mid-Year Global Update. That is an ad-reach figure for adults, not a count of everyone on the app. DataReportal flags a gap: GWI's surveys show TikTok adoption roughly flat over two years, and Similarweb's data show active use of TikTok's apps fell by roughly 10% between September 2025 and February 2026. So read the 2 billion as what TikTok tells advertisers, not as proof of fast growth.
The last full set of country figures is from January 2025, when DataReportal put TikTok's adult ad reach at 1.59 billion, with the largest audiences in the United States, Indonesia and Brazil (DataReportal, January 2025). ByteDance, TikTok's parent, has not published an official worldwide monthly user count since 2021.
Is TikTok bigger than Instagram? It depends on the measure. On ad reach, DataReportal says TikTok's tools now "significantly exceed" the Instagram reach in Meta's planning tools (April 2026), a reversal from January 2025, when Instagram's ad reach (1.74 billion) was ahead of TikTok's 1.59 billion. On monthly users, Instagram reported 3 billion in September 2025 (CNBC, 24 September 2025), and TikTok has published no comparable figure since 2021.
Data: DataReportal, "Essential TikTok Stats", January 2025 figures, page last updated 12 March 2025. See the report. Figures are TikTok's advertising reach, not total active users. Checked 5 October 2026.
When you see "TikTok has over 1 billion users", that milestone is from 27 September 2021, when TikTok said it had passed 1 billion monthly active users (CNBC, 27 September 2021). TikTok has not published an official global user count since. The 2026 "2 billion" figure is ad reach from TikTok's ad tools, which is a different measure.
How many TikTok users are in the US?
Two solid numbers describe the US audience, and they measure different things. Pew Research Center found that 37% of US adults use TikTok, from a survey of 5,022 adults run between February and June 2025. DataReportal put TikTok's US ad audience at 153 million people aged 18 and over in late 2025, up 15.2 million (11.0%) since the end of 2024.
| Measure | Figure | Source and date |
|---|---|---|
| Share of US adults who use TikTok | 37% | Pew Research Center, survey February to June 2025 |
| US ad audience, aged 18+ | 153 million | DataReportal, late 2025 |
| Change in US ad audience since end of 2024 | +15.2 million | DataReportal, late 2025 |
| Share of US women / men who use TikTok | 42% / 30% | Pew Research Center, survey February to June 2025 |
Sources: Pew Research Center, 20 November 2025; Pew social media fact sheet; DataReportal, Digital 2026: United States. Checked 5 October 2026.
Age and gender: who is on TikTok
The clearest answer is that TikTok skews young but is no longer a teen-only app. In the US, 63% of adults aged 18 to 29 use TikTok, against 44% of those 30 to 49, 30% of those 50 to 64 and 12% of those 65 and over. So among adults, the group that uses TikTok the most is 18 to 29.
| US age group | Share who use TikTok |
|---|---|
| 18–29 | 63% |
| 30–49 | 44% |
| 50–64 | 30% |
| 65+ | 12% |
Data: Pew Research Center social media fact sheet (survey of 5,022 US adults, 5 February to 18 June 2025). Checked 5 October 2026.
Worldwide, the picture comes from TikTok's own ad audience. DataReportal reports that the biggest slice of that adult audience is 25 to 34 (about 35%), just ahead of 18 to 24 (about 31%). These shares only cover users aged 18 and over, so under-18s, a real part of TikTok, are not in them.
| Age band (global, 18+ ad audience) | Share |
|---|---|
| 18–24 | 30.7% |
| 25–34 | 35.3% |
| 35–44 | 16.4% |
| 45–54 | 9.2% |
| 55+ | 8.4% |
Data: DataReportal, January 2025, the latest age breakdown on its TikTok page. Shares add the female and male figures TikTok reports for each band. Checked 5 October 2026.
TikTok's teen audience is real but easy to overstate. Pew found that 68% of US teens aged 13 to 17 use TikTok, from a survey of 1,458 teens run from 25 September to 9 October 2025, and that 21% of teens say they are on it almost constantly. Because the global age table above only counts adults, teen use sits on top of it rather than inside it.
On gender, TikTok's global adult ad audience was 55.7% male and 44.3% female in January 2025. In the US it is closer to even, at 52.3% male and 47.7% female in late 2025. Both come from TikTok's advertising data via DataReportal. Pew's survey points the other way for use: 42% of US women use TikTok against 30% of men.
How much time people spend on TikTok
TikTok holds attention for longer than most rival apps, though the estimates differ by firm. In a 2025 report on TikTok's US business, Sensor Tower said users spent an average of 75 minutes a day in the app in March 2025, second only to YouTube's 78 (Sensor Tower, 2025). eMarketer forecast that US adult TikTok users would average about 52 minutes a day in 2025, lower because it models a wider group (eMarketer, 2025). The "95 minutes a day in 2025" figure on many stats pages traces back to a Sensor Tower figure for the second quarter of 2022, so we leave it out.
| Group | Average time per day | Source and date |
|---|---|---|
| TikTok users (report on the US business) | 75 min | Sensor Tower, March 2025 |
| US adult users | ~52 min | eMarketer forecast, 2025 |
These are panel-based estimates, not figures TikTok publishes, so read them as best guesses that different firms measure differently. Checked 5 October 2026; eMarketer's page is paywalled, so its figure is as reported in eMarketer's published article.
TikTok Shop and money: what TikTok sells
TikTok does not release financial results, so every money figure here is an outside estimate. The clearest one is TikTok Shop, the in-app store. Momentum Works estimated its global sales at US$64.3 billion in 2025, up 94% on the year, across 16 markets. Southeast Asia, where TikTok Shop launched first, doubled to US$45.6 billion, and the United States reached US$15.1 billion, up 68%.
| Estimate | Figure for 2025 | Source and date |
|---|---|---|
| TikTok Shop global sales (GMV) | $64.3 billion (+94%) | Momentum Works, 11 February 2026 |
| TikTok Shop Southeast Asia sales (GMV) | $45.6 billion | Momentum Works, 11 February 2026 |
| TikTok Shop US sales (GMV) | $15.1 billion (+68%) | Momentum Works, 11 February 2026 |
Source: Momentum Works, 11 February 2026. GMV means gross merchandise value, the total value of goods sold. Checked 5 October 2026.
For GMV by market, sellers, buyers and live share, see TikTok Shop statistics.
You will also see "TikTok made about $33 billion in 2025" and "437 million downloads in the first half of 2025" on many pages. We could not trace either to a primary source on 5 October 2026: the $33 billion appears to be an ad revenue forecast quoted second-hand, so we leave both out rather than repeat them.
Who owns TikTok now?
On 22 January 2026, TikTok announced that the TikTok USDS Joint Venture had been established to run its US operations. Non-Chinese investors hold about 80%, with Oracle, Silver Lake and Abu Dhabi's MGX holding 15% each as the managing group, and ByteDance keeps nearly 20%. The change satisfies a US law that would otherwise have banned the app, and Oracle is the security partner that manages US user data.
Source: TechCrunch, 23 January 2026. Checked 5 October 2026.
Who is searching, by topic
Most stats pages stop at the whole platform. TikTok also publishes who searches for a given topic, through its Creator Search Insights tool, and that is data you cannot get from a survey. We pulled the audience split for four everyday topics on 22 September 2026, covering the previous 30 days worldwide. The shares below are of every searcher TikTok counted, including its own "others" (age) and "unknown" (gender) groups, which it does not break down.
| Topic searched | Biggest age group | Gender lean | Top country |
|---|---|---|---|
| Skincare | 18–24 (20%) | Mostly unclassified | Philippines |
| Recipes | 18–24 (41%) | Female (40%) | United States |
| Fitness | 18–24 (42%) | Male (41%) | United States |
| Budgeting | 18–24 (42%) | Female (62%) | United States |
Data: TikTok Creator Search Insights. Open the snapshot. Shares are of all searchers TikTok counted in the 30 days to 22 September 2026; "unknown" and "others" are kept as reported. We searched Creator Search Insights for skincare, recipes, fitness and budgeting; TikTok's matching records are named in the snapshot.
The 18 to 24 group is the biggest known age group in all four topics; in skincare it is only 20% because most searchers went unclassified. But the gender lean flips hard by subject, from a mostly female budgeting audience to a mostly male fitness one. TokConnect pulls that split for any topic you name, in ChatGPT, Claude or the research agent; the TikTok audience insights guide shows how.
Pull the audience age and gender split for people searching [your topic] on TikTok. Show the shares of all counted searchers, keep the unknown group, and tell me the top three countries.
Ask TokConnect who searches your topic
TikTok as a search engine
One of the biggest shifts behind these numbers is that people now search on TikTok, not just scroll it. Surveys of TikTok as a search engine vary a lot by who was asked and when. We keep that evidence, with each study and its year, on the TikTok search statistics page so it does not crowd out the numbers here, and compare the two engines in TikTok vs Google search. The short version: search adoption is wide but shallow, and almost nobody has swapped Google for TikTok, yet the raw search demand on individual topics is large enough to matter to anyone making videos.
How we got these numbers
On 5 October 2026 we re-checked every outside figure on this page against its source: DataReportal's TikTok, Instagram, United States and Digital 2026 Mid-Year pages, Pew Research Center's 2025 adult and teen reports and its social media fact sheet, Sensor Tower's 2025 TikTok report, Momentum Works' February 2026 TikTok Shop report, and TechCrunch's January 2026 report on the US deal. Three figures changed or went: the 2026 ad reach (now over 2 billion, up from 1.59 billion in January 2025), the time-spent figure (the widely quoted 95 minutes was a 2022 number, replaced by Sensor Tower's 75 minutes for March 2025), and the revenue and download estimates, which we could not trace to a primary source.
The topic audience data is ours. On 22 September 2026 we used TokConnect on four Creator Search Insights topics, for the 30 days to that date, worldwide. Shares are each group's count divided by TikTok's total for that dimension, with TikTok's "others" and "unknown" groups kept in. Limits: these are four topics, not the whole platform, and TikTok cannot classify every searcher. Open the snapshot.
Where TikTok statistics come from
Four kinds of source sit behind good TikTok statistics, and it helps to know which you are reading. DataReportal packages the numbers TikTok shows advertisers, so its reach figures are consistent but count only adults. Pew Research Center runs probability surveys of US adults and teens, which is the gold standard for "what share of people use it". Firms like Sensor Tower, Business of Apps and Momentum Works publish estimates of time, downloads and money that TikTok never confirms. And TikTok's Creator Search Insights is where TikTok publishes its own organic search demand. When a stat has no named source and no date, it is usually a copy of a copy.
Key statistics
TikTok's own advertising tools reported that its ads could reach "well in excess of 2 billion" people aged 18 and over each month in April 2026, while third-party data from GWI and Similarweb showed flat or falling use.
37% of US adults said they use TikTok in a Pew Research Center survey of 5,022 adults run from 5 February to 18 June 2025, up from 21% in 2021.
63% of US adults aged 18 to 29 use TikTok, against 12% of those aged 65 and over, according to Pew's February to June 2025 survey.
All 6 statistics
68% of US teens aged 13 to 17 use TikTok and 21% say they use it almost constantly, from a Pew survey of 1,458 teens run from 25 September to 9 October 2025.
TikTok Shop sold an estimated US$64.3 billion of goods worldwide in 2025, up 94%, including US$15.1 billion in the United States, up 68%.
62.1% of the people TikTok counted searching the topic "Budgeting" in the 30 days to 22 September 2026 were female, and 41.6% were aged 18 to 24.
Frequently asked questions
How many people use TikTok in 2026?
TikTok has not confirmed a 2026 user count. The newest figure is ad reach: TikTok's own planning tools said its ads could reach well over 2 billion adults a month in April 2026, according to DataReportal. TikTok last published an official user milestone on 27 September 2021, when it said it had passed 1 billion monthly active users.
How many TikTok users are in the US?
Two measures answer this. Pew Research Center found that 37% of US adults use TikTok, from a survey run from February to June 2025. DataReportal put TikTok's US advertising audience at 153 million people aged 18 and over in late 2025, up 15.2 million since the end of 2024.
What age group uses TikTok the most?
Among adults, 18 to 29 (63% in Pew's 2025 survey); among teens 13 to 17, 68% use it. In the US, 63% of people aged 18 to 29 use TikTok, against 44% of those 30 to 49, 30% of those 50 to 64 and 12% of those 65 and over (Pew, 2025 survey). Worldwide, TikTok's adult ad audience was largest in the 25-to-34 band in January 2025, just ahead of 18-to-24.
Is TikTok bigger than Instagram?
It depends on the measure. On ad reach, DataReportal says TikTok's tools now significantly exceed Instagram's in Meta's tools (April 2026), reversing January 2025, when Instagram led 1.74 billion to 1.59 billion. On monthly users, Instagram reported 3 billion in September 2025, and TikTok has published no comparable figure since 2021.
How much money does TikTok make?
TikTok does not publish financial results. The best-sourced money figure is TikTok Shop: Momentum Works estimated its global sales at $64.3 billion in 2025, up 94%, with $15.1 billion in the US. The often quoted figure of about $33 billion in 2025 revenue could not be traced to a primary source.
Where does TikTok data come from?
Good TikTok statistics come from four kinds of source. DataReportal packages the reach numbers TikTok shows advertisers. Pew Research Center runs probability surveys of US adults and teens. Firms like Sensor Tower, eMarketer and Momentum Works estimate time, downloads and money. TikTok's own Creator Search Insights is where it publishes organic search demand. A stat with no named source and no date is usually a copy of a copy.
Sources and data
- Digital 2026 Mid-Year Global Update Report (DataReportal, April 2026 data)
- Essential TikTok Stats (DataReportal, January 2025 data)
- Essential Instagram Stats (DataReportal, January 2025 data)
- Digital 2026: The United States of America (DataReportal)
- Americans' Social Media Use 2025 (Pew Research Center, 20 November 2025)
- Social Media Fact Sheet (Pew Research Center, 2025 survey)
- Teens, Social Media and AI Chatbots 2025 (Pew Research Center, 9 December 2025)
- TikTok averts US service interruption (Sensor Tower, 2025)
- TikTok Will Be the Top Social App in Daily Minutes in 2025 (eMarketer)
- TikTok Shop US GMV grew 68% to US$15.1B in 2025 (Momentum Works, 11 February 2026)
- Here's what you should know about the US TikTok deal (TechCrunch, 23 January 2026)
- TikTok says 1 billion people use the app each month (CNBC, 27 September 2021)
- Instagram now has 3 billion monthly active users (CNBC, 24 September 2025)
