Google and Apple removed social app TikTok from their app stores in India last week, but it will now be returning to the stores, after the state court in Tamil Nadu overturned its ban. This, in turn, has spurred India’s federal government to tell Google and Apple that they can make the app available again.
“We are grateful for the opportunity to continue serving our users better,” a TikTok spokesperson told Reuters, in response to the news.
As Music Ally noted last week, India is a key market for TikTok, with one estimate (from analytics firm Sensor Tower) suggesting that India accounts for as many as 300m downloads of the app – not far off a third of its global total.
Reuters reported that part of TikTok parent company Bytedance’s appeal against the ban was its claim of financial losses of “up to $500,000 a day” as a result. Even if there’s an incentive to stress the worst-case scenario in such an appeal, that’s an eye-watering statistic. Is India really a $182.5m-a-year market for TikTok? Bear in mind that according to the IFPI, India’s entire recorded-music market was worth $156.1m in 2018. A figure that would not include TikTok’s revenues, we should add: the point we’re making is that by Bytedance’s reckoning, TikTok may already have an annual ‘run-rate’ bigger than the Indian recorded-music industry. In any case, TikTok is returning to the Indian app stores, although the debate in that country about the responsibilities (and legal liabilities) of social / UGC platforms in general continues.
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