TikTok’s user base in South Korea has grown despite concerns over data privacy.

In January 2025, TikTok had 4.89 million monthly active users, while its lightweight version, TikTok Lite, had 4.79 million.

Together, they reached 9.69 million users, surpassing Facebook’s 8.61 million users during the same period.

TikTok Lite, launched in late 2023, caters to users with limited device memory or data capacity.

This growth comes amid concerns about data-sharing issues with China and app addiction.

Recently, South Korean authorities suspended new downloads of the DeepSeek chatbot after discovering ByteDance shared user data with its developers.