Empowering people with data

Jan 8, 2025 | Apps

TikTok global quarterly downloads 2018-2024

In the fourth quarter of 2024, TikTok generated around 186 million downloads from users worldwide. Initially launched in China first by ByteDance as Douyin, the short-video format was popularized by TikTok and took over the global social media environment in 2020. In the first quarter of 2020, TikTok downloads peaked at over 313.5 million worldwide, up by 62.3 percent compared to the first quarter of 2019.

In 2024, TikTok registered an engagement rate of approximately 4.64 percent on video content hosted on its platform. During the same examined year, the social video app recorded over 1,100 interactions on average. These interactions were primarily composed of likes, while only recording less than 20 comments per piece of content on average in 2024. The platform has been actively monitoring the issue of fake interactions, as it removed around 236 million fake likes during the first quarter of 2024.

Though there is no secret formula to get the maximum of these metrics, recommended video length can possibly contribute to the success of content on TikTok. It was recommended that tiny TikTok accounts with up to 500 followers post videos that are around 2.6 minutes long as of the first quarter of 2024. While, the ideal video duration for huge TikTok accounts with over 50,000 followers was 7.28 minutes. The average length of TikTok videos posted by the creators in 2024 was around 43 seconds.

Since its launch in September 2023, TikTok Shop has become one of the most popular online shopping platforms, offering consumers a wide variety of products. In 2023, TikTok shops featuring beauty and personal care items sold over 370 million products worldwide. TikTok shops featuring womenswear and underwear, as well as food and beverages, followed with 285 and 138 million products sold, respectively. Similarly, in the United States market, health and beauty products were the most-selling items, accounting for 85 percent of sales made via the TikTok Shop feature during the first month of its launch. In 2023, Indonesia was the market with the largest number of TikTok Shops, hosting over 20 percent of all TikTok Shops. Thailand and Vietnam followed with 18.29 and 17.54 percent of the total shops listed on the famous short video platform, respectively. 

 

Jan 6, 2025 | Cinema & Film

Highest-grossing film franchises and series 2025

As of January 2025, the Marvel Cinematic Universe series was the highest-grossing film franchise with total worldwide box office revenue of 31.06 billion U.S. dollars. "Avengers: Endgame" (2019) was Marvel's highest-grossing movie with 2.8 billion dollars in global revenue. The "Star Wars" and "Harry Potter" series followed with worldwide box office revenues of about 10.32 billion and 9.56 billion dollars, respectively.

The Star Wars series started in the late 1970s and has captured the attention of nerds and moviegoers in general ever since. Released just before the COVID-19 outbreak, the latest film of the saga, "The Rise of Skywalker," recorded a global box office revenue of over one billion dollars. This is almost four times more than the production of the movie had cost. The success of the franchise goes beyond the realm of cinema. The video game Star Wars: Squadrons, for instance, sold over one million digital copies worldwide in the first month of its release in October 2020.

While Star Wars has a history of peaks and valleys, the Harry Potter franchise seems to be jinxed since the launching of its prequel series, Fantastic Beasts. The box office revenue of "Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald" (2018) stood below 655 million dollars worldwide. This is the lowest revenue generated by a movie from the Harry Potter universe since the brand debuted on the big screen in 2001. The amount is also nearly 20 percent below the global box office of its predecessor, "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them" (2016).

Jan 8, 2025 | Currencies

Weekly market cap of all cryptocurrencies combined up to January 2025

It is estimated that the cumulative market cap of cryptocurrencies increased in early 2023 after the downfall in November 2022 due to FTX. That value declined in the summer of 2023, however, as international uncertainty grew over a potential recession. Bitcoin's market cap made up the majority of the overall market capitalization.

What is market cap? Market capitalization is a financial measure typically used for publicly traded firms, computed by multiplying the share price by the number of outstanding shares. However, cryptocurrency analysts calculate it as the price of the virtual currencies times the number of coins in the market. This gives cryptocurrency investors an idea of the overall market size, and watching the evolution of the measure tells how much money is flowing in or out of each cryptocurrency.

Cryptocurrency as an investment The price of Bitcoin has been erratic, and most other cryptocurrencies follow its larger price swings. This volatility attracts investors who hope to buy when the price is low and sell at its peak, turning a profit. However, this does little for price stability. As such, few firms accept payment in cryptocurrencies.

Jan 7, 2025 | Corporate Financing

Most valuable unicorns in the United States December 2024

SpaceX, OpenAI, and Stripe were the largest U.S. unicorns as of December 2024, topping a ranking that looks at the market values of American unicorn companies. This ranking is based on estimates provided by multiple sources that looked at company valuations.

Jan 9, 2025 | Economy

Consumer confidence in China 2019-2024

In November 2024, the index for consumer confidence in China ranged at 86.2 points, down from 86.9 points in the previous month. The index dropped considerably in the first half of 2022 and performed a sideways movement during 2023 and 2024. 

The consumer confidence index (CCI), also called Index of Consumer Sentiment (ICS) is a commonly used indicator to measure the degree of economic optimism among consumers. Based on information about saving and spending activities of consumers, changes in business climate and future spending behavior are being projected. The CCI plays an important role for investors, retailers, and manufacturers in their decision-making processes. However, measurement of consumer confidence varies strongly from country to country. As consumers need time to react to economic changes, the CCI tends to lag behind other indicators like the consumer price index (CPI) and the producer price index (PPI).

As shown by the graph at hand, confidence among Chinese consumers picked up since mid of 2016. In October 2017, the CCI hit a record value of 127.6 index points and entered into a sideward movement. Owing to a relative stability in GDP growth, a low unemployment rate, and a steady development of disposable household income, Chinese consumers gained more confidence in the state of the national economy. Those factors also contribute to the consumers’ spending power, which was reflected by a larger share of consumption in China’s GDP. After the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, consumer confidence dropped quickly in the beginning of 2020, but started to recover in the second half of the year, leading to a v-shaped movement of the index in 2020.

Jan 7, 2025 | eSports

Top eSports players in South Korea 2025, by total prize money earned

As of January 2025, Lee Sang Hyeok, also known as "Faker", has earned around 1.8 million U.S. dollars in prize money. This makes him the top South Korean earner of prize money from e-sports tournaments. Overall, Korean eSports players have won a total of over 153.1 million dollars across around 9,000 tournaments. South Korea ranks third worldwide in terms of earnings, behind China and the United States.

Lee has earned all of his prize money from League of Legends tournaments. League of Legends, often referred to as LoL, is a free-to-play MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) game developed by Riot Games. Even though the game is more than a decade old, it is still enjoying a major popularity among South Koreans. As of October 2024, almost 40 percent of the total playtime in so-called PC bangs was accumulated by League of Legends.

E-sports are a big part of modern South Korean culture. After the PC bangs, a type of LAN gaming center, formed from regular internet cafés in the early 2000s, they became a hotspot for gamers, both casual and professional. PC gamers use those spaces to meet with their peers and use the high-end computers provided to play games. As users usually play multiplayer games in those facilities, competitions quickly emerged and even got funded by the government as well as big South Korean companies. South Korea was the first country to build a stadium dedicated to e-sports. To this day, gaming and e-sports are enjoyed by many in the country.

Jan 7, 2025 | Fintech (Mobile/online banking)

Largest digital banks in Europe 2025, by funding amount

The leading European digital bank in terms of total funding amount as of January 2025 was Monzo, securing 1.8 billion U.S. dollars in funding. It was followed by Revolut, N26, and Wise, all with a total funding of 1.7 billion U.S. dollars. Other than these, Starling Bank and OakNorth managed to raise over one billion U.S. dollars.

In 2024, Wise served 12.8 million customers, while Revolut led the digital banking sector with 50 million customers. Despite this rapid user growth among digital challenger banks, their customer base remains significantly smaller than that of established traditional European banks.

As of September 2024, there were eight European digital banks that had reached unicorn status. Unicorn companies are those in which have had venture capital investment and have exceeded company valuation of over one billion U.S dollars.

Jan 7, 2025 | Educational Institutions & Market

Leading UK universities ranked by the Complete University Guide 2025

The University of Cambridge was listed as the best university in the United Kingdom in 2025 with an overall score of 1000, compared with the University of Oxford, which came in second-place with a score of 965.

Jan 7, 2025 | Social Media & User-Generated Content

Nigeria: Facebook users 2024, by age group

As of December 2024, there were over 51.2 million Facebook users in Nigeria, accounting for 21.9 percent of the population in the country. Overall, those between the ages of 18 and 24 accounted for 34.2 percent of the users, while those between the ages of 18 and 24 accounted for 33 percent of the users, making these two groups the largest age groups of Facebook users in the country, respectively. The least represented age group of Facebook users were those between the ages of 55 and 64 with a mere share of 3.9 percent.

Jan 3, 2025 | Individual Sports

Australian Open prize money 2025, by stage

For the 2025 Australian Open, which is the first Grand Slam tournament in the professional tennis calendar, the prize money for the men's and women's singles winners was set at 3.5 million Australian dollars. Meanwhile, the prize money for the runners-up stood at 1.9 million Australian dollars.