- Video app TikTok stated on Monday it had actually surpassed 100 million monthly users in Europe.
- The business also has 1,600 staff members in Europe.
- The numbers come as TikTok’s fate hangs in the balance in the United States, with President Trump stating the app needs to sell its United States service by Tuesday or deal with a ban.
- TikTok’s most senior European officer Rich Waterworth told BI it had “been growing actually well for a long period of time” in the area.
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TikTok has “more than 100 million” monthly active users across Europe, according to a blog post by Rich Waterworth, the company’s European general manager.
In an exclusive interview with Company Insider on Sunday, Waterworth said user numbers had “been growing actually well for a long time.”
” You don’t get to 100 million without growing consistently and highly for an extended period of time,” he stated. “We saw during lockdown people were utilizing the platform in different methods.”
Waterworth stated there were changes in user growth throughout the coronavirus lockdown, “but you’re taking a look at a continual, extended period of development over the last two years.”
The numbers were released ahead of a key week for the app’s future in the United States, which accounts for around 100 million of its almost 690 million month-to-month active users
President Trump has threatened to shut down the app on Tuesday if a sale is not agreed to unload the business’s United States arm to an American buyer.
” TikTok’s numbers don’t shock me at all and speak to the enormous virality and growth they saw during lockdown,” said Timothy Armoo, creator of Fanbytes, a UK-based TikTok-focused agency.
At the exact same time, the business announced 2 other metrics showing revealing its growth in Europe.
All but 300 of those workers are based in the UK and Ireland– the two nations thought to be the frontrunners for TikTok’s European headquarters, and by meaning, the rational base for the business outside the United States.
Ireland is house to TikTok’s European information privacy group, with the company’s trust and safety hub for Europe, the Middle East and Africa based in Dublin.
Waterworth said the focus on data and security in Ireland was due to the nation’s pre-existing proficiency in the field– though he added Brexit played a function in the choice.
” Post-Brexit, it’s extremely important to have a center in the EU,” he stated.
London is house to the business’s monetization, sales, developer partnership and item groups, as well as significant marketing and interaction arms.
” Europe is a significant part of TikTok,” Waterworth informed Service Insider.
” We deliberately have actually constructed up strong, cross-functional groups and strong leadership teams in the key markets and ask those teams to look at the particular obstacles and requirements of those markets,” he stated.
TikTok likewise revealed that 40%of creators eligible for its $300 million Developer Fund in Europe, which was announced in late July and began paying on September 1, had registered to the plan.
Waterworth declined to share how that compared to uptake of the US fund.