TikTok has already made its way into the heart of teens, with more than 1 in 10 (13%) declaring it their favorite social media platform, behind only Snapchat and Instagram. But what about adults? As it turns out, the number of unique US adults visitors to the app has more than doubled in a year, per data provided by Comscore.
In March 2020, more than 28.8 million US adults (ages 18+) used the video-sharing app. This is compared to roughly 14.2 million who used the app in March 2019. Indeed, the number of total US adult unique visitors has risen relatively steadily over the past year, continuing the trend that started when the app became available to US users in October 2017. Back then it only had about 2.6 million unique visitors.
The coronavirus pandemic has almost certainly boosted TikTok’s numbers of late, as the number of unique US adult visitors to the app jumped from about 23.2 million in February to more than 28.8 million in March, an impressive 24.3% month-over-month rise.
So who are the adults that are using the TikTok app? Here’s what the data shows.
TikTok Adult User Demographics
Not surprisingly, TikTok sports the highest adoption with young adults, reaching 38.1% of 18-24-year-olds in March. This is more than three times the reach it has with 35-44-year-olds (11.7%). It also has greater reach among women (45.2%) than men (31.2%) in the youngest age bracket. This trend is borne out across most age groups, and is especially great among the 25-34 bracket, in which almost one-quarter (24.3%) of women use the app, about twice the figure (12.4%) for men of the comparable age.
It’s already clear that TikTok has made a splash with young users, as previous survey research indicates that adoption goes beyond teens, with one-quarter of the Americans surveyed between the ages of 12 and 34 using the app. However, that same research found that a mere 3% of adults age 35+ use the app.
Comscore’s data shows this same trend, with 38.8% of unique adult visitors in March 2020 being ages 18-24 and an additional 26.5% ages 25-34. In other words, almost two-thirds (65.3%) of adult visitors in March were ages 18-34.
By contrast, only 7.5% of unique visitors were between 55-64-years-old and 1% were 65+.
The household income breakdown shows that 40.2% of unique adult visitors in March came from households with an annual income of more than $100K. However there does not seem to be any correlation between household income (HHI) and TikTok usage, with reach ranging from 10.2% on the low end (HHI of $60-75K) and 15.7% on the high end (HHI of under $25K).
The Age Gap Widens
During the same time period in 2019, the age distribution of adult users of the TikTok app was less pronounced than it now is. For example, in March 2019 18-24-year-olds constituted 25.8% of unique adult visitors to the platform, compared to 38.8% a year later. (See the March 2019 breakdown here.)
At the same time, older Americans’ share of unique adult visitors has declined. In March 2019, users ages 35 and older accounted for about half (49.6%) of TikTok’s adult users. Fast forward one year, and these adults represent a little more than one-third (34.7%) of total adult users.
As such, TikTok’s appeal to younger users is becoming more and more apparent and should be taken into account for those marketers expecting to up their spend on the platform this year.
For more information on social media user demographics, see MarketingCharts’ 6th Annual Media Audience Demographics report, which details the age, income and race/ethnicity breakdown of 6 social media platforms: Facebook; Instagram; Snapchat; LinkedIn; Pinterest; and Twitter.
About the Data: Figures are based on total unique visitors using mobile web and app; includes musical.ly users.
