On Thursday, TikTok reemerged in the application repositories of Apple and Google in the United States subsequent to President Donald Trump’s postponement of a prohibition on the Chinese-owned social media platform, concurrently assuring the technology corporations that they would not incur penalties for its distribution.
It is important to note that the short video application, utilized by nearly fifty percent of the American populace, experienced a cessation of service for a brief period last month, prior to the enactment of legislation on January 19 that mandates its Chinese proprietor, ByteDance, either to divest the application on the basis of national security concerns or confront a prohibition.
The United States President subsequently executed an executive directive aimed at postponing the implementation of the ban by a duration of 75 days, thereby permitting the application to sustain its operations in the U.S. for a temporary period.
Despite TikTok’s restoration of services following Trump’s reassurances, both Google and Apple maintained the application’s absence from their respective U.S. app stores.
In the meantime, the short video application, which ranked as the second-most downloaded application in the United States during the previous year, announced on Thursday that its latest version was now accessible for download.
Analysts posited that the postponement may have stemmed from Google and Apple awaiting confirmations that they would not face legal repercussions for hosting or distributing the application.
Trump’s directive articulated that the companies operating mobile application stores or digital marketplaces, where users engage in browsing, downloading, and updating applications, would not be subjected to penalties for maintaining the operational status of the TikTok application.
According to market intelligence organization Sensor Tower, TikTok recorded over 52 million downloads in the year 2024.
Sensor Tower reported that approximately 52% of its overall downloads originated from the Apple App Store, while 48% were derived from Google Play within the United States during the preceding year.
