Staying at Home and Working From Home Lead to Boom in TikTok and Zoom

While the impact of COVID-19 is being felt globally, and there’s no question of the longterm economic impact; one industry remains strong: mobile apps. Within this sector, there are plenty of examples of tech companies that have benefited in usership from the pandemic, such as Netflix, mobile app games, and social media platforms. Across the board though, there are two apps that stand out among their competition: TikTok and Zoom.

TikTok is a popular social media platform dedicated to bringing joy, and inspiring creativity through short-form mobile video, according to their mission statement. While Zoom is a video-conferencing, telecommunication software designed for business professionals, webinars, and personal communication.

“Zoom is the leader in modern enterprise video communications, with an easy, reliable cloud platform for video and audio conferencing, collaboration, chat, and webinars across mobile devices, desktops, telephones, and room systems. Zoom Rooms is the original software-based conference room solution used around the world in board, conference, huddle, and training rooms, as well as executive offices and classrooms.”
–Zoom-

TikTok has seen astronomical growth since the start of 2020. While the mobile app and combined websites already had a growth trend, the increase in usage between January and March are case-study worthy. The TikTok app by itself saw 30.1% growth in unique visitors/month between January and March. The app also saw a jump from 19% to 27% of users from the 13-35-year-old market sector. Beyond usership, increased downloads, and other exciting metrics – one important factor to highlight is the amount of time being spent on the app.

Between January and March TikTok saw a 48.3% growth in time spent/visitor. A massive leap that highlights the extraordinary boom TikTok is seeing.

Zoom is seeing a similarly stellar growth rate, recently reporting that they now receive over 300 million daily Zoom meeting participants, which is a 50% increase from reports early last month, and an outstanding increase from the 10 million daily users back in December of 2019.

Take Aways From the Boom

In mobile app development, and in any trade really, the best creators copy and borrow from one another. Any entrepreneur should know it’s important to learn from others, and there are two strong mobile components that contribute to the TikTok and Zoom boom to consider in mobile app development.

Communication: Zoom is the clear winner here. Hitting 300 million daily users is a milestone in and of itself, but the ability to communicate remotely through Zoom’s platform is really the main factor driving the massive growth its seeing, despite a series of security issues that have been reported. Designing communication platforms into a mobile app should be a priority, especially in a time when the consumer market is aching for human connection, and businesses are searching for communication solutions while remote work swiftly becomes the norm.

Human Connection and Creativity: TikTok capitalizes on entertainment, and providing a human connection through inspiring short-form video. The community on TikTok is generally positive – which is another important factor in considering app-development during the pandemic, and beyond. Keeping the community friendly and welcome should always be a priority in apps that feature mass-communication.

TikTok and Zoom have not only kept afloat during COVID-19, but have managed to grow, and at an extremely impressive rate, and offer many lessons to current mobile app developers. For questions about mobile app development, or how to apply some of these tactics to a mobile app currently under development, get in touch with NS804.