But it also comes as concerns over how secure user data is in the hands of its Chinese owner ByteDance summon big storm clouds elsewhere - TikTok has been banned in India and President Donald Trump has ordered ByteDance to sell its U.S. operations, triggering the resignation on Thursday of only recently installed CEO Kevin Mayer.
At 19, Sandy Saputra is big on TikTok Indonesia. Within a year, he’s leapt from quiet, small-town life to star influencer status as more than 10.5 million followers lap up his toothy grin in dancing, pranking and lip-synching videos on the booming app.
Sandy’s success, becoming his family’s main breadwinner as global brands like Coca Cola or Suntory pay to have their names on his light-hearted clips, comes as TikTok mushrooms across Southeast Asia. Data trackers show it’s been downloaded hundreds of millions of times already in a region with a collective population of 630 million - half of them under 30.
