Instagram has beat TikTok by the numbers in 2023, having been downloaded 767 million times, an increase of 20% since 2022, according to The Guardian. Instagram has been releasing similar features found on TikTok, such as reels, in the past few years.
What the data says
The marketing intelligence firm Sensor Tower released new data estimates that compares TikTok and Instagram, according to Business Insider. They found that Instagram grew 20% between 2022 and 2023, while TikTok only saw a 4% growth.
According to The Guardian, Instagram was downloaded 767 million times in 2023, whereas TikTok was only downloaded 733 million times. TikTok was the most popular social media app to be downloaded between 2018 and 2022.
Business Insider summarized other important touch points Sensor Tower found out from their data analytics.
- TikTok still has active users, but the rate they are gaining users is slower than before.
- TikTok users spend an average of 95 minutes on the app, while Instagram users spend about 53 minutes on their app.
The battle between TikTok and Instagram
The Guardian reports that Mark Zuckerberg saw TikTok as serious competition in the past few years. Sensor Tower believes that this uptick in Instagram’s numbers is due to their Reels feature, along with their disappearing stories feature, both copies of features from TikTok and Snapchat, respectively.
According to Abraham Yousef from Sensor Tower, “Instagram has outperformed TikTok in adoption over the past few years, driven by the popularity of its Reels feature along with legacy social media features and functions,” per Mashable.
Business Insider explains how Instagram’s Reel feature is just as good as TikTok’s, has photo editing tools Instagram users have been wanting and doesn’t promote unpopular features as much in the app to users. Instagram also has the chat feature, which TikTok does not have currently.
Farhad Divecha, from the digital marketing agency Accuracast, shared that Instagram has benefited when they reacted quickly to their TikTok competitor and their broader demographic appeal, according to The Guardian.
According to Mashable, TikTok has been losing its appeal to audiences because it has started to focus more on e-commerce, such as showing more promoted or sponsored videos in users’ feeds.