The recent confirmation of the U.S. TikTok deal is a reminder that the app is a major player in the U.S. economy, as its $14 billion price tag suggests. All of the talk about TikTok’s U.S. impact, however, may be obfuscating its larger-than-life presence in other regions. A report published by TikTok details its economic contributions in the European Union, where its direct and indirect impact totals an estimated €31 billion.
The report is based on a survey conducted by Public First on TikTok’s behalf. By synthesizing factors as diverse as ad spend, sales value generated by businesses active on TikTok, and music industry royalties, Public First found that TikTok’s reach in the E.U. goes far beyond the For You Page.
The €31 billion figure includes “direct, indirect, and induced economic output,” TikTok claimed. The app’s contributions to Europe’s creative sector totaled €2.6 billion, a sum that equates to about 52,000 full-time jobs. Germany accounted for the largest slice of the €31 billion pie; the impact of its TikTok community added up to €7.2 billion. France — despite its government’s aggressive policing of TikTok — came in second on that list at €5.2 billion.
Subscribe for daily Tubefilter Top StoriesSubscribe“Since launching across Europe in 2018, TikTok has transformed how people discover content, products, and ideas,” reads the report. “What began as a platform for short-form video and creativity has grown into a powerful engine for discovery — enabling creators to reach new audiences, helping businesses connect with customers, and expanding choice for more than 200 million users in Europe.”
Some portions of the economic contribution are more opaque than others. TikTok, for example, claims that it supports 5.3 billion hours of informal learning, and the report suggests that the app’s education value could be worth up to €20 billion in productivity gains across Europe. TikTok also argued that it saves consumers €10 billion annually by providing them with more choice and access through hubs like TikTok Shop.
Those gains may be hard to gauge, but they also explain what makes TikTok so powerful. In the pop music world, for example, TikTok doesn’t operate as a record label, but it still claims to generate €1.8 billion of value through music streaming, ticket sales, and merchandise purchases.
Like many other social media platforms, TikTok has figured out how to translate hype into sales. When you consider that Europe and the U.S. aren’t even TikTok’s biggest regions, its global dominance comes clearly into view.