More Gen Zers now use TikTok than Instagram in the US

After astronomical user growth in 2019 and 2020, TikTok will reach a pivotal milestone with respect to its youngest users. By the end of this year, the video app will have a larger number of Gen Z users in the US than that of Instagram. And it will surpass Snapchat in terms of total users by 2023, according to our latest social user forecast.

This year in the US, TikTok will have 37.3 million Gen Z users (born between 1997 and 2012) who access their accounts at least once per month. For comparison, Instagram will have 33.3 million users within the same demographic.

“Instagram’s user base is steadily aging,” said Debra Aho Williamson, eMarketer principal analyst at Insider Intelligence. “This year, its fastest-growing age group will be ages 35 to 44 [up 7.2%], while gains will be much slower among teens 12 to 17 [0.7%] and young adults 18 to 24 [2.0%]. However, Gen Z will still make up nearly three in 10 users on Instagram [28.0%] this year, so advertisers can still find them on the platform.”

Snapchat, meanwhile, is the leading social network in the US among Gen Z, with 42.0 million users in the group this year. While it will maintain that position through 2025, TikTok will narrow the gap considerably by the end of the forecast period.

“TikTok has incredibly strong engagement and loyalty among Gen Z. The members of this generation are using it not only to be entertained, but also increasingly to learn about and discuss weightier issues such as climate change, politics, and news,” Williamson said. “Other social platforms also offer such content, but TikTok’s unique video style and aesthetic is strongly appealing to young people.”

We have increased our user projections for TikTok, now that the threat of it being banned in the US has died down. Total users in the US will grow 18.3% this year to reach 78.7 million. As a result, TikTok is now on pace to surpass Snapchat in terms of total users by 2023. At that point, TikTok will have 89.7 million users compared with Snapchat’s 89.5 million.

Instagram still far exceeds TikTok and Snapchat in terms of total users.The Facebook-owned platform will have 118.9 million users this year, up 3.7% over 2020. We have also raised our Instagram projections, following the introduction of InstagramReels.