Pakistan’s social media scorecard 2022: The rise of TikTok

Despite Meta’s ownership of Facebook, WhatsApp, and Messenger, analytics company SensorTower found that in 2022, the most downloaded app in Pakistan was the Chinese short-video sharing app TikTok.

The previous year saw 39 million downloads for TikTok, with Facebook trailing by more than 7 million. In third place was Snapchat, with nearly 30 million downloads, a growth of 51.26% from 2021.

In comparison to Facebook’s 7.66% growth, the app owned by the Chinese government saw a massive 49.43% increase.

Over 118.8 million copies of meta-platforms were downloaded in total, a 22.98% increase from the previous year’s 96.6 million.

Meanwhile, Twitter’s decline continues, especially since Elon Musk, owner of Tesla, purchased the California tech giant last year. Twitter was once widely used by journalists, celebrities, and notables.

It was the 13th most popular social media app, with 6,000,000 downloads, behind Bigo Live (8.99,000,000) and Likee (200,000,000). (7.3 million).

For what reason did you choose TikTok?
Meta Oversight Board member and digital rights activist Nighat Dad shed some light on the meteoric rise of TikTok by noting that it provided its users with features that others did not, such as a variety of filters designed to make users feel good about themselves.

Dad continued by saying that this made it hard for competing platforms to take on TikTok.

What I’ve seen in Pakistan is that working people find common ground with this platform. Seventy percent of our people reside in rural areas, and many of them cannot read or write. Despite this, they are still capable of conveying their thoughts, ideas, and abilities through visual means. What TikTok provides is precisely this. Those people can be themselves in their native tongue and culture without having to learn English.

Someone from any village, working in accordance with their environment, such as a maid in private homes, is being recognized for their contributions on the basis of the quality of their work. Working calls can easily use this platform in their native language and content to gain notoriety because of the strong resonant relationship between the platform’s consumers and its users.

Dad, however, disputes the view that Meta platforms are obsolete.

They are introducing new elements, such as the Metaverse, and adjusting others. They are doing things like thinking about the Metaverse in the year 2100. In order to be compatible with the members of Generation Z, all of these platforms that emerged during the millennial era face a formidable challenge.

Global tendencies
A mobile insights strategist at SensorTower, Stephanie Chan, commented on the findings, saying, “TikTok maintained its position as the most downloaded and highest-grossing app worldwide in 2022.”

But she also mentioned “significant upheaval” at the year’s end.

In the weeks that followed, “adoption of Twitter alternatives, such as Mastodon, climbed rapidly,” Chan said. However, only time will tell if these platforms can hold on to their new users.

Moreover, she said, “We also saw social media giants take cue from newcomer BeReal, which is known for its dual-camera feature and its timed notifications to post.”