Facing a potential ban in the United States, TikTok has surpassed Facebook in South Korea, riding the wave of short-form content popularity. The number of users for TikTok and TikTok Lite has overtaken that of Facebook. In particular, the explosive growth of TikTok Lite is leading this trend.
◇ Nearly 10 million TikTok users in South Korea
According to the app statistics analysis platform Mobile Index, TikTok's monthly active users (MAU) as of December last year were approximately 4.67 million, while TikTok Lite had about 4.65 million. The combined MAU of both apps reached 9.32 million, surpassing Facebook's MAU (8.64 million) by about 680,000 for the first time.
Notably, TikTok Lite's MAU was only about 310,000 at its launch in January last year, but it grew more than 15 times by December of the same year, becoming a key driver of TikTok's ecosystem expansion.
The rapid growth of TikTok Lite can be attributed to its differentiated strategy of data saving and support for low-spec devices. TikTok Lite is a lightweight version app focused on content consumption, providing the same recommendation algorithm as the official TikTok app while significantly expanding its user base with a light app size and minimal data consumption. The existing TikTok app also maintains stable MAU as it is suitable for both content creation and consumption with advanced editing tools and live broadcasting.
TikTok and TikTok Lite are forming a complementary relationship, expanding the TikTok ecosystem. The success of TikTok can be largely attributed to its AI-based personalized content recommendations. It continually recommends videos that users prefer, enhancing immersion and making it easy to discover new content daily. In particular, short-form content has rapidly gained popularity among the MZ generation due to its short and addictive nature.
In contrast, Facebook, which has long dominated the social media (SNS) market, saw its MAU decrease from 9.91 million in January last year to 8.64 million in December, a decline of about 13%. Industry experts cite the exodus of the 10-20 age group and Facebook's inability to adapt to the short-form content trend as major causes.
◇ "U.S. regulations have indirect effects on other countries, including South Korea"
Currently, TikTok is under scrutiny in the United States due to privacy breach concerns. The U.S. Congress enacted a ban last April, citing that TikTok's parent company, ByteDance, may pose a national security risk by collecting vast amounts of personal data from Americans.
The U.S. government has stated that it would ban the service if ByteDance does not sell TikTok's U.S. business rights, prompting TikTok to temporarily suspend its services in the U.S.
Afterward, on the 20th of the month (local time), TikTok's service was restored following an executive order from President Trump, who took office. On that day, President Trump announced that he would grant a 75-day reprieve on the TikTok ban measures to find a solution.
According to a report by The Wall Street Journal (WSJ), President Trump stated, "I am prepared to exercise the authority to ban or close the service if the negotiations for the sale of TikTok's U.S. business rights do not succeed."
Some industry insiders have raised concerns that the uncertainty surrounding TikTok in the U.S. could impact the global market. TikTok manages most of its operating systems and data centers on a global scale, so regulations in the U.S. could indirectly affect services in other countries.
An industry source said, "TikTok is leading the short-form content trend and rapidly encroaching on the territory of traditional platforms like Facebook," but noted that "U.S. regulatory risks could impact TikTok's revenue and operating systems, which may threaten service stability in South Korea as well."