By 2020, 40% of Chinese consumers will be Gen Z. To put that in perspective today, that is everyone under 21 years old. For video site users, 90.6% are born after 1995 and 70% use social media to purchase various products and services.
Due to short attention spans, research has shown short and easily digestible content works best for Gen Z, which Douyin has proven time and time again (after another app called ‘Kuaishou’, for example)
source: qianfan.analysys.cn
Compared with many other Chinese platforms, Douyin has a unique user demographic. In the early days, the vast majority of Douyin’s users were female between 18-24 years-old from first-tier Chinese cities. Since their explosive growth, the demographics have drastically changed.
In May 2018, 56% of the users were female and 44% were male. Almost 30% of the users were under 24 years old and just above 20% between 24 and 30 years old. To sum it up, over 50% of the users were below 30 years old and about 75% of the users is below 35 years old making Douyin a Millennial and Gen Z-dominated application.
source: qianfan.analysys.cn
In terms of location, 35% of Douyin users are located in China’s richest cities, also known as ‘super-cities’ and ‘first-tier cities’ (i.e Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen). Douyin has also experienced an upcoming growth of third-tier city users (like Zhongshan, Zhanjiang, Shaoxing, Huizhou and many others).
source: qianfan.analysys.cn
For app usage, Douyin users are the most active during lunch time (12-2pm) and evenings from about 7pm until midnight. We tested posting content at different times on different days and the received the highest traction in the evenings, usually around 10 pm. The day itself matters less with the exception being Sundays when there are less active users.