TikTok is expected to be the third largest social network by 2022

According to a new forecast, TikTok is the world’s third-largest social network, trailing only Facebook and Instagram. Insider Intelligence — the firm formerly known as eMarketer — predicts that TikTok will reach 755.0 million monthly users in 2022, after growing by 59.8 percent in 2020 and 40.8 percent in 2021 in its first forecast on TikTok’s global install base.

Facebook reported 2.91 billion monthly active users in its most recent earnings, representing a 6% year-over-year increase. And, just recently, Instagram employees revealed that the company’s network had surpassed 2 billion monthly users, a significant increase from the 1 billion monthly user milestone reported in June 2018.

Insider Intelligence’s forecast, on the other hand, is based on its own 2022 predictions, which employ a slightly different set of calculations. The firm’s definition of a monthly active user may differ from that of each company it examines. For example, it only counts users who log in at least once a month on a consistent basis over the course of a calendar year, and it attempts to eliminate fake accounts from its estimates. This is intended to give clients a more consistent “apples to apples” comparison across all platforms.

According to the firm’s projections, Facebook will have 2.1 billion monthly users in 2022, followed by Instagram, which will have 1.28 billion users. TikTok, with 755 million monthly users, will come in second, ahead of Snap and Twitter.

TikTok has grown rapidly in the last couple of years.

Sensor Tower, an app intelligence firm, reported that the short-form video app had 2 billion downloads across the App Store and Google Play in the first quarter of 2020. According to a separate App Annie report, TikTok grew 325 percent in 2020, and monthly time spent per user grew faster than any other app, including by 65 percent in the United States, surpassing Facebook.

TikTok (including sister app Douyin in China) became the first non-Facebook mobile app (outside of games) to reach 3 billion downloads globally across the App Store and Google Play in July 2021, with TikTok consumer spending exceeding $2.5 billion globally. This put the app in the company of only a few other apps that had reached that milestone, such as Tinder, Netflix, YouTube, and Tencent Video.

While other firms predicted TikTok’s monthly active user base would exceed 1 billion by 2021, Insider Intelligence’s forecast is slightly more conservative due to its methodology. However, it anticipates that the app will continue to grow, albeit at a slower rate of 15.1 percent in 2022.

TikTok’s share of total social networking users is increasing as a result of its growth. According to Insider Intelligence, TikTok will surpass a 20% market share for the first time and will approach a quarter share by 2024.

“The rise of TikTok is especially challenging for Snapchat, with which it competes head-to-head for the youth audience,” said Debra Aho Williamson, principal analyst at Insider Intelligence. “Although TikTok bears little resemblance to Twitter, its massive size in comparison to the more established platform is a clear reflection of TikTok’s addictive nature,” she said.

According to the company, there is still plenty of room for TikTok’s future growth, as 3.57 billion people will use a social networking app at least once per month next year.