Recently, the data company Sensor Tower released the “2022 H1 Pan-Entertainment Application Market Insights” report (hereinafter referred to as the “Report”), announcing the 2022 H1 (first half) global best-selling list of popular social applications. Among them, three Chinese products, Zhihu, Soul and Weibo, entered the top 5 best-selling social apps in the community sharing category with Facebook and LinkedIn, showing strong commercialization ability.
Source: “2022 H1 Pan-entertainment Application Market Insights”
The report shows that in 2021, the number of global social application downloads exceeded 7 billion for the first time, reaching 7.4 billion, an increase of 6% over 2020. Only in the U.S. market, social sharing apps occupy 6 seats in the top ten downloads list, showing the strong dominance of social products in the Internet field.
In terms of revenue, global social application revenue has grown steadily, successfully surpassing US$6 billion in 2021, an increase of 29% over 2020. Between January and May 2022, overall social app revenue reached $2.7 billion, a year-on-year increase of 10.3%.
Source: “2022 H1 Pan-entertainment Application Market Insights”
This time, the report divides global social applications into three categories, conducts in-depth research and analysis, and releases the list accordingly. For example, a community sharing social application refers to a social application that forms a specific community or community by publishing or sharing multimedia content such as videos, pictures, and text, and the representative product is Facebook.
The report shows that Zhihu, Soul, Weibo and other social products are shortlisted in the TOP5 best-seller list of community sharing social applications, and QQ and WeChat have also entered the TOP3 best-selling list of messaging social applications. This also shows the gold-absorbing ability and commercialization potential of Chinese social products.
Take Soul, an open social network that recently submitted an application for listing in Hong Kong stocks. According to the prospectus, in 2021, the platform’s MAU (monthly active users) will reach 31.6 million, a year-on-year increase of 51.6%; DAU (daily active users) will be 9.3 million, a year-on-year increase of 55.8%; platform revenue will reach 1.281 billion yuan, up from the previous year. Year-on-year growth of 157.3%. According to media reports, Soul’s revenue is mainly based on VAS value-added services, and it is exploring directions such as advertising, social e-commerce, and the new economy of the Metaverse.
Previously, ten apps from Chinese manufacturers, including TikTok, Bigo Live, QQ, and Soul, were among the top 100 global entertainment app downloads and revenue lists in the first half of 2021.