Instagram is now the world’s most downloaded app, overtaking TikTok. Much of the success is owed to Reels, which has helped surge ahead. Instagram’s total number of app downloads grew 20 per cent in 2023 to 768m compared with a year earlier, according to market intelligence firm Sensor Tower, while downloads of TikTok, owned by Beijing-based ByteDance, picked up four per cent to 733m over the same period.

The figures are coming at a moment when the White House is concerned about the security risks of TikTok. Many US federal workers are not allowed to use the app on their government phones. At the same time, US President Joe Biden’s campaign is relying on the app to energise young voters ahead of the 2024 election.

Instagram’s popularity picked up after its launch in 2010 alongside reality royalty such as the Kardashians but stiff competition arrived with TikTok. Instagram managed to keep its pace with the launch of a feature called Reels in 2020.

“Instagram has outperformed TikTok in adoption over the past few years, driven by the popularity of its reels feature along with legacy social media features and functions,” Abraham Yousef, senior insights manager at Sensor Tower, told Financial Times. Instagram’s monthly active users reached 1.47b, with a rise of 13m in the final quarter of 2023, according to Sensor Tower. TikTok’s active users reached 1.12b, with a decline of 12m in the final three months of last year.

ByteDance has spent the last few years trying to eliminate security concerns about TikTok by storing its American user data on Oracle servers in the US. It was the cornerstone of a 2022 draft agreement between ByteDance and administration negotiators.

TikTok growth has a lot to do with its algorithm that targets users with viral content but Meta has invested wisely in AI to improve its recommendations system. Meta’s chief financial officer Susan Li said last month that Instagram was “making strong progress increasing the freshness of recommended content”.