See TikTok's meteoric rise on iOS throughout 2021

Louis Godfrey
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User-level iOS data app usage data is famously hard to come by. Most reports and app intelligence dashboards are powered by Android usage data and iOS insights rely on “installs” data. 

Using our behavioral data collection solution Retro, we were able to collect iOS app usage data from 10k+ users throughout 2021, who were rewarded fairly for sharing this data. 

This enables us to track individual iOS app’s usage - and when it comes to iOS apps, the biggest story in 2021 is the meteoric rise of TikTok.

As outlined in Measure's MobileLife report 

  • Towards the end of 2021, overall active users on a weekly basis were quickly approaching that of YouTube (88%) with 73% of users contributing data having used Tiktok on a weekly basis.
  • This was up 13% from the start of 2021 
  • Interestingly, the over 25’s saw the fastest growth,  an increase of 15% in users contributing data having TikTok on a weekly basis 
  • ​​But importantly TikTok’s average number of hours used per week remained unparalleled - over 10 hours for 18-25’s and 7 hours for 26+
Top Social Apps, Active User % & Avg. Hours Used, Q4 2021


The combination of almost reaching YouTube’s active user percentage; while its average time used is so far ahead of its competitors, means that TikTok is now in a league of its own when it comes to iOS app usage. 

TikTok's Total Time Used

Here we look at the total time used of TikTok - a combination of the active usage percentage and average hours used - in each quarter of 2021.

Total Time Used, TikTok, US iOS 2021


Other resources, powered by Retro data

See the top iOS 10 gaming apps in December, 2021.

Download our MobileLife report and see

  • Shopping app's (Ebay, Shein Walmart etc.) engagement
  • A deep-dive into Roblox
  • What product drive Apple and Google's in-app purchase revenue

Interested in adding iOS data to your competitive Intelligence? See how Retro can help