TikTok popularity by U.S. state

TikTok and Instagram are locked in a war for market share in the United States, and TikTok is winning, according to new data this week from Start.io. 

Start.io studied an anonymized sample of 11 million Americans with Android phones, to estimate the relative market share of TikTok, Instagram and Facebook, based on app downloads. Start.io studied total downloads but did not study mobile app open rates or average session length (Read more about the dataset toward the end of this article). 

TikTok is most popular in Nevada, where the app has been downloaded by an estimated 50 percent of smartphone users. It’s least popular in Delaware, where it’s been downloaded by just 20 percent of people. 

Both TikTok and Instagram trail Facebook, which has been downloaded by roughly 62 percent of Americans nationwide. 

Top 5 states where TikTok is most popular: 

Top 5 states where Instagram is most popular: 

In all, TikTok has been downloaded by a larger percentage of the population in 32 states, while Instagram is still leading in 13 states. The two apps are locked in a dead heat in the remaining 5 states.  

It’s hard to make definitive conclusions about why TikTok is so popular in certain states over others. 

TikTok is generally stronger in politically conservative states, while Instagram is generally stronger in politically liberal states. 

In the 10 U.S. states where TikTok is strongest, 7 voted for Donald Trump in the popular vote by double digit margins in the 2020 election (Kentucky, Arkansas, West Virginia, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, and Tennessee). The remaining 3 states where TikTok is strongest voted for Biden by slim margins (Nevada, New Mexico, and Iowa). 

In the 10 U.S. states where Instagram is strongest, 9 voted for Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election (Delaware, Virginia, Oregon, New Jersey, New York, District of Columbia, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Maryland). The remaining 1 state narrowly voted for Trump (Florida). 

In an earlier analysis of political affiliation and mobile apps, Start.io found that nearly 44 percent of likely Democrats in the United States had downloaded Instagram, compared to roughly 35 percent of likely Republicans. 

Outside of politics, the split might simply be geographic: TikTok is most popular in the South and the Midwest, while Instagram is most popular on the East Coast and the West Coast. 

More on this dataset: Start.io routinely studies representative, anonymized consumer samples using first-party data that it gathers as part of its advertising SDK. In this dataset, Start.io studied 11 million Android users in the United States to build estimates of the relative mobile app download rates of TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook.  

This dataset did not include iOS users, Android users who had opted out of sharing advertising data, or study session lengths or app open rates.  

For more information about this dataset, or to activate it in your next advertising campaign, check out TikTok users in the United States. 

Start.io’s mobile advertising SDK is installed on more than 500,000 active mobile apps worldwide and delivers digital ads to more than 2 billion people per month. Start.io gives advertisers powerful audience segmentation tools, and insights to help them build high-performing ad campaigns. 

Reach out to learn more about Start.io’s audience segmentation and mobile monetization solutions.