Yesterday, we covered news on the current hearing where TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew is fighting the ban of the app in the US. Bernstein, a private wealth consulting company, has stated that big tech companies like Meta, Google, and Snap that offer similar services are the most likely to benefit if the ban is put into place. They’ll see their stock rise and daily users monumentally increase. Also, we may likely see TikTok clone apps appear, but not as much as we saw in India.
Utah has already put two laws in place where children need permission to access social media, specifically for the harm TikTok allegedly causes them. However, the major concern for the US government is that the ByteDance app sends data and information to the Chinese government. Shou Zi Chew is doing his best to prove that TikTok “is not beholden to the Chinese government.”
According to a note by Bernstein, TikTok users will look for a similar place to dwell and engage with content if the ban is put into place. The most likely contenders will be Meta, Snap, Google, and even users returning to YouTube. Also, we’ll probably see the same companies advertising there, as they will be losing out on a massive audience.
Alright, let’s spend a moment looking at some numbers. Bernstein says users spend about 2.8 trillion minutes per year on TikTok, with 150 million US users on the app alone. Netflix has the top spot for average minutes per day, with TikTok second at 52 minutes per day. Just to make that clear, that’s per user.
I think that’s a modest number. I’m sure many spend hours on it every day, especially into the twilight hours.
We need to keep in mind what happened in India when Tiktok was banned there. New apps just like it sprang out of everywhere to replace it, becoming immensely popular. While Bernstein says that’s unlikely to happen in the US, I’m not so sure. There are so many developers who would love to profit from TikTok’s absence in the country.
In any event, we’ll have to first wait to see if TikTok will be banned and then what the result of that action is.
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