Google and Apple have pulled TikTok, the popular Chinese video app, from their stores in India to comply with a court order prohibiting new downloads.
The move has frozen the expansion of ByteDance, the Chinese social media group that owns TikTok, in its biggest market by users outside China. Byte-Dance’s rapid ascent has drawn government criticism abroad and in China, where the company has been warned for hosting “inappropriate” content.
TikTok, a platform for sharing short videos made by users, was one of last year’s most popular apps. It was downloaded 663m times in 2018 — more than Instagram — with about 40 per cent of new users coming from India, according to Sensor Tower, a mobile consultancy.