TikTok's Traffic Nearly Returns to Pre-Shutdown Levels, But Still Not Back in App Stores

According to data from Cloudflare Radar seen by CNBC, TikTok's traffic has almost returned to pre-shutdown levels despite its delayed return to US app stores. David Belson, Cloudflare's head of data insight, reported that the DNS traffic for TikTok-related domains is about 10 percent lower than before its abrupt shutdown.

To put this in perspective, TikTok's traffic plummeted by as much as 85 percent when the app went offline in response to the US divest-or-ban law. Although TikTok started to come back online on January 19th, it remains unavailable on both Google Play and the Apple App Store.

The shutdown also impacted other apps owned by ByteDance, TikTok's parent company, including Marvel Snap, CapCut, and Lemon8. Despite these apps restoring their services in the US, they are still not available in app stores, and there is no indication of when they might return. Some users have resorted to using a VPN or changing their Apple ID region to Canada in an attempt to access the apps.

President Donald Trump has signed an executive order delaying TikTok's ban, but the app is not completely in the clear yet. This ongoing legal uncertainty may be causing Apple and Google to hesitate in bringing TikTok and other ByteDance-owned apps back to their stores.