Mobile social media: TikTok raise and Meta stronghold
Social networking, as well as apps that allow users to communicate via instant chat or calls, were among the most used mobile services in the Nordics. As of the third quarter of 2020, social media apps had a reach of more than 90 percent in Sweden and approximately 93 percent in Denmark. By comparison, according to a 2021 survey of users in Finland, internet browsers and apps to access e-mail services were the most popular apps for users in the country, with 76 percent and 75 percent of respondents reporting to use apps in this category regularly.In 2021, Facebook users in the Nordics were particularly consistent in visiting the platform from their mobile devices: Norway saw 98 percent of Facebook users in the country accessing the social media from their portable devices, while Sweden, Denmark, and Iceland reported between 97 percent and 97.5 percent of their Facebook audiences accessing the platform from mobile. While mobile-first social video app TikTok appeared to be not as popular as traditional social media platforms, its digital audience in the Nordics appeared to grow during the global outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic. During the outbreak, the share of TikTok users in Norway grew from seven percent to 10 percent, while in Denmark the app’s user bases grew from one percent to four percent. As of mid-2021, TikTok was also among the most downloaded social app in Sweden, generating 81 thousand downloads from Android users and 34 thousand downloads from iPhone users in the month of July alone.
