TikTok is catching up on Instagram and Facebook with its Irish subscriber base

Insider Intelligence predicts TikTok’s worldwide ad revenue will triple this year and surpass that of Snapchat and Twitter combined

People like TikTok creator Katie Feeney are behind rising interest. Photograph: Shuran Huang/Bloomberg

People like TikTok creator Katie Feeney are behind rising interest. Photograph: Shuran Huang/Bloomberg

TikTok app

People like TikTok creator Katie Feeney are behind rising interest. Photograph: Shuran Huang/Bloomberg

Adrian Weckler Twitter Email

April 14 2022 02:30 AM

TIKTOK now has 2.25 million active user accounts in Ireland, a sharp rise from January, when it had 2.1 million active accounts.

The figures suggest that the Chinese-owned platform, which now employs close to 2,000 people in Dublin, is closing in on both Instagram (2.6 million) and Facebook (2.7 million) as the most used social media service in Ireland.

TikTok is currently under investigation from the Data Protection Commissioner for how it transfers personal data to China and how it handles children’s data.

A spokesperson for TikTok declined to comment on the user figures, which come from the company’s advertising service and were first reported by Cork-based Mulley Communications.

A recent survey among 4,000 Irish children by CyberSafeKids shows that 47pc of those aged between eight and 12 years of age use TikTok, despite its age restriction of 13.

Separately, TikTok’s latest transparency report shows that it removed more than 15 million accounts “suspected to be under the age of 13” in the last quarter. However, the company declined to comment on how it does this or whether any staff in its Dublin base are involved. TikTok told the Irish Independent that it has “auditors” for content moderators in Dublin, where its ‘trust and safety’ centre is now based.

A separate report also reveals that the company received 14 “legal requests” from Irish authorities, relating to 16 speparate TikTok accounts, which resulted in “some data” being handed over by TikTok to authorities in four of the cases.

It did not receive any “emergency requests” from authorities here, such as for missing persons.

A spokesperson for TikTok declined to answer further questions about the report.

A report from Insider Intelligence predicts that TikTok’s worldwide ad revenue will triple this year and surpass that of Snapchat and Twitter combined.

The report estimated that TikTok will have more than $11bn (€10.1bn) in ad revenues in 2022, with more than half coming from
the US.

The research also predicts that TikTok’s UK ad revenues will make up 8.9pc of the company’s global ad revenues by the end of this year, rising 190pc to £753m (€904m) and giving the company a 2.9pc share of the UK digital ad market.

Last week, TikTok announced that it was ready to proceed with a €600m Irish data centre project, understood to be operated by Echelon, to process Irish and European user data from 2023 onwards.

The company told the Irish Independent that it would comply with the Irish DPC’s investigation into questions over the transfer of data to Chinese servers.