TikTok hits 1.5B downloads, outperforming Instagram

Outperforming when Instagram is banned in China.

I remember there was a vaguely similar services from Twitter, and that somehow never caught on.

You're thinking of vine, which felt like it was just hitting critical mass when twitter killed it off. TikTok has grown so big because of the boost it started with from people looking for a vine replacement. At least that's what it feels like, I don't have the numbers to back it up.

Doesn't TikTok use a separate brand and app called Douyin in China with its own app download counts?

Yes, it does.

Do you even know TikTok is not available in China? The brand was specifically created for western countries. In China the same company (ByteDance) owns a hugely popular short-video app called Douyin. These two apps do not share content for obvious reasons (yes, communist censorship and all that).

I think what boggles HN readers' mind (mine included and I'm Chinese btw), is that in a place that's purportedly Orwellian or at least bearing resemblance to it, creativity is supposed to be severely oppressed and virtually non-existent. Yet the reality is quite the opposite.

Yes, but it was in the report and I quote

"Much of TikTok's growth has been driven by an explosion of users in India, who accounted for 31% of the app's downloads. Its second-biggest market was China which made up 11.5% of downloads, then the US with 8.2%. "