Where are the bulk of their users based? I assume China right? Surely the ARPU in China is way less than the USA where FB/Snap/goog/twtr own most of the market.
And due to various reasons, some from censorship, some from the medium itself and how the company chooses to operates on it, Tik Tok is mainly free of political contents, which makes it less toxic.
Also Tik Tok breaks out in other major Asian market as well, like Japan/S Korea/Taiwan, etc. Those markets are very lucrative.
South Korea[No.4]: https://www.similarweb.com/apps/top/google/store-rank/kr/all...
Japan[No.8]: https://www.similarweb.com/apps/top/apple/store-rank/jp/all/...
Taiwan[No.2]: https://www.similarweb.com/apps/top/google/store-rank/tw/all...
In fact, if you count China, it is most downloaded iOS apps in the WORLD, for the first quarter of 2018:
https://qz.com/1272285/bytedances-music-video-app-douyin-tik...
And Bytedance has other mega apps other than Tik Tok, like Toutiao, which is its own money maker.