TikTok might be under assault by the U.S. government, banned in India, and not even available in China, but in February TikTok was the highest-earning app in the world. And it wasn’t even close: TikTok’s $189 million in revenue almost doubled the next-most-profitable app, YouTube, which only reached $111 million.
Actually, this isn’t really surprising.
In what is starting to be a bit of a broken record, TikTok was also the highest earning app in January and December of 2023, according to mobile analytics vendors AppFigures. And November and September, too. In fact, it’s been the top-earning global app for at least 15 months running.
TikTok has pretty much two sources of revenue. One is advertising, which isn’t covered in this report (but is very lucrative as well). The second is in-app purchases: people buy coins for about $0.02 each (the minimum buy is 65 coins at a time). Those coins can then be given to creators during live-streams, as tips in comments, or used for yourself to boost a personal post and make it more visible to other people.
The upshot from this report: people are buying a lot of coins on TikTok. TikTok has tapped into tipping much more effectively than Facebook, Twitter, Snap, or even Instagram, and has been doing so for a long time.
For combined totals, the top-earning apps on the planet last month were:
- TikTok: $189 million
- YouTube: $111 million
- Disney+: $107 million
- Tinder: $85 million
- Max (former HBO): $58 million
- LinkedIn: $39 million
- Bumble: $39 million
- Hulu: $34 million
- Peacock TV: $33 million
- Audible: $33 million
TikTok’s revenue is down slightly, but so were all global mobile revenues, says Ariel Michaeli, CEO of AppFigures.
“TikTok was the highest-earning app in the world in February. Our estimates show it commanded $189M of net revenue from the App Store and Google Play,” Michaeli says. “A smidge lower than January, but not enough to worry.”
Global revenue for the top 10 in-app earners was $728 million in February, he added, down 3% from January’s $748 million.
And TikTok has been at the top of the leaderboard for a long time: since at least December 2022.
“I can’t really remember when TikTok wasn’t the leader in our rankings,” Michaeli said last month.
As the United States government continues to try to force a sale of the Chinese-owned app in 2024, TikTok just keeps printing money. The question, however, is whether all this negative governmental attention will eventually have an impact both on the key talent at TikTok or on American users of the app, who are likely responsible for the lion’s share of the revenue.
