February 18, 2025
It’s been one month since TikTok briefly went offline in the U.S., and internal company comments and external data offer a picture of how the situation has impacted the short-form video app’s business. By some accounts, TikTok is doing pretty well.
American Users & Creators
TikTok’s U.S. daily active users hit 106.8 million on January 19, when the app came back online for users who had downloaded it, according to Similarweb. Activity then fell as low as 79.7 million in mid-February. These users have started to come back since then, rising to as high as 86.1 million on Friday. (Also Thursday, Apple and Google mobile stores resumed allowing users to download TikTok, after yanking the app on January 18.) Similarweb’s data show that for the seven-day period ended Friday, U.S. daily users are down 9% on average compared to a one-week average in early January—not a huge difference.
TikTok CEO Shou Chew told staff last week that the app beat its own expectations for daily active users in the U.S. and globally, while TikTok’s top 1,000 most-followed creators increased their number of posts by 26% in the first two days after TikTok came back online in January.
Other data similarly show that TikTok has bounced back. By the end of January, TikTok nearly returned to its original traffic levels after usage plunged when the app temporarily went offline, according to data from Cloudflare Radar cited by CNBC.
Some creators I’ve spoken to are still nervous about the future, while others have pushed the threat to the back of their minds. Either way, most haven’t scaled back their presence dramatically on the app in the interim.
TikTok Shop & Advertising
TikTok’s ecommerce offering Shop has also seen a rebound, especially in the immediate aftermath of the shutdown being lifted. On Jan. 19, once the app was back online, total sales amounted to $32 million, the second highest day in terms of revenue for the month of January, according to Charm.io, which tracks ecommerce data.
More generally, Chew also said the app has seen “positive momentum” since the short-lived shutdown, saying “100% of our ad campaigns that were paused as a result of this are now live.”
In other TikTok news:
Wu Yonghui, a long-time Google researcher, has joined TikTok owner ByteDance to help lead the company’s AI research and development, The Information reported.
Here’s what else is going on...
See The Information’s Creator Economy Database for an exclusive list of private companies and their investors.
Amazon shut down Inspire, a TikTok-like shopping feed inside its mobile app that it launched in 2022, The Information reported.
Uscreen, a startup that helps creators make mobile apps and run membership programs, raised $150 million in new funding from PSG Equity.
Publicis Groupe announced it will acquire Brazilian influencer marketing agency BR Media Group, less than a year after acquiring U.S. influencer marketing agency Influential for $500 million.
Kim Kardashian’s Skims and Nike announced plans for a new women’s athletic apparel and footwear brand, NikeSkims, which will launch sales this spring. The partnership marks the first collaboration between Nike and an existing outside company to launch a new brand.
Instagram is testing a private “dislike” button next to comments. “This gives people a private way to signal that they don’t feel good about that particular comment,” Instagram head Adam Mosseri wrote on Threads. But he said there will not be a dislike count and people won’t know if someone pressed the button.
Reddit plans to add paywalled content, or paid subreddits, later this year, according to CEO Steve Huffman. “We're working on it as we speak,” he said during a video “Ask Me Anything” session last week following the company’s latest financial results.
Spotify could charge as much as $5.99 a month on top of existing paid plans for a new streaming service offering better audio and access to concert tickets, Bloomberg reported.
Cameo, the celebrity video shoutout app, is offering employees $10,000 raises to come into the office four days a week.
Anthony Pompliano announced a deal with Elon Musk’s X for a new exclusive business show called “From the Desk of Anthony Pompliano.” The crypto investor released his first episode of the daily show on Tuesday, which touched on topics including the first month of President Trump’s second term and investor pessimism on stocks.
Aleen Dreksler, CEO and co-founder of Betches Media, launched a newsletter on Substack called Please Advise, where she’ll offer advice about work, motherhood, and other topics. Her digital media company focused on women was acquired by LBG Media, the U.K. owner of social media publisher LADbible Group, for $24 million in October 2023.
Meta Platforms plans to take up its complaints about European regulations with President Trump, according to remarks Meta’s global policy director Joel Kaplan made at a conference in Munich. Kaplan’s comments are the latest sign that U.S. tech companies hope to use Trump’s America-first strategy to shield them from European regulation.
Shein and Halara, two clothing brands that spend heavily on influencer marketing, are pausing some campaigns as they assess what Trump tariffs will mean for their businesses, Business Insider reported.