It might as well be a rhetorical question at this point.
After a few years of dominating the app download charts, TikTok finally had to step down from the throne—beaten by the weapon that they’ve forged, apparently.
In this Data Story, we’ll take a quick glance at how the emergence of Reels—which was touted as a “TikTok copycat” upon release—placed Instagram in the driving seat.
How did Instagram take over TikTok in 2024?
During the latter half of the 2010s, social media went through a fatigue stage of sorts.
Images and text weren’t as consumable content as before—making people spend less time scrolling through social media.
But then, a short-form-video algorithm-powered TikTok appeared. And changed everything.
- In November 2017, the app had 80M downloads in the US.
- By 2019 it was downloaded 690M+ times.
- In 2020, the number of downloads surpassed 850M.
The change to content–first, a recommendation platform with short videos meant that scrolling through static feeds wouldn’t be enough. The video-swiping era arrived.
So in mid-2020, Instagram released the Reels feature as a response to TikTok. Some would argue—a carbon copy of the app.
And we can see from this chart by the Financial Times, how the tides started changing ever since:
If there’s a chart that illustrates how the tables have turned—it’s this one.
After its peak in 2020 where it dominated Instagram, a year after the Reels launch, the Meta-owned app got a little closer.
By the end of 2023, the new app order was established.
🖱️📈 Clicking on each individual chart will take you to its interactive board.
Instagram vs TikTok Growth
Downloads only tell a part of the story.
To understand the Reel impact (pun intended), let’s see how active users grew on the two apps over the years:
If you take a look at the TikTok line, you may notice that—given the growth—it threatened to catch up with Instagram at some point.
However, some time after the release of Reels, the TikTok line just started trending alongside Instagram, signaling that it will have a hard time taking over in the future.
For reference, we took data for Pinterest (on the lower side) and Facebook (on the higher side) to showcase how a slow, steady active user growth looks compared to these two powerhouses.
📰 Further reading: Being second to Instagram is no shame. TikTok is still a big shot. If you want to learn more about TikTok—and its audience specifically—check out this Data Story on TikTok’s audience behavior in 2024.
How Did Instagram Revenue Grow After Reels Launch
Now comes the most important part—and the chart will tell the tale:
Check out that revenue spike after Reels launch, and most notably from Q1 2021 to Q3 2022.
After Reels picked up, Instagram’s share became almost half of entire Meta’s revenue.
This indicates that Meta “reinvented” Instagram with Reels at the best possible time—while TikTok was peaking, but still establishing itself.
🥊 Instagram was a heavy hitter already. The addition of Reels just strengthened its dominance. Similarly to how the addition of Stories in 2016—which was initially pioneered by Snapchat—added another dimension to the app.
“Borrowing” ideas is legal in business, isn’t it?
Attracting the Eyeballs
In case you’re wondering how Reels affected the revenue spike, ponder on this graph for a bit:
Before Reels, users didn’t spend nearly as much time on Instagram as they did on TikTok—the app that fed them recommended content to make them stay.
After Reels, the situation started to change.
Attention equals currency. More time on the app equals more ads being shown to each person, which finally means—more ad revenue to the platform.
And with Instagram testing longer Reels, Meta’s goal is clear—keep users on at all costs.
👀 Research from Sensory Tower and other sources show that TikTok is still holding the eyeball-shaped trophy. Users are indeed spending more time on TikTok than on Instagram. Monetizing those eyeballs… well, that’s still something Meta excels at.
Time to reel in?
One thing’s clear—TikTok did Meta a favor.
Reels was a format TikTok popularized in the late 2010s, but it is Instagram that had success, becoming the most popular and most downloaded app in the world.
The talk of TikTok’s ban can further establish Instagram—with Reels as its golden geese—the undisputed leader of social media platforms.
Just goes to show how big players can “borrow” big ideas and profit, huh?
Sources
The report sourced data from the following:
