TikTok says it has reached 1 billion monthly active users, making the social media platform a bonafide hit. The short-form video sharing service has become a cultural phenomenon, defining the zeitgeist of a post-pandemic world.

It’s been tumultuous four years for TikTok, the video-sharing social network, since launching outside of China in September 2017 and has experienced accelerating growth ever since.

TikTok, which is owned by ByteDance, announced the news in a TikTok video featuring the company’s COO, Vanessa Pappas, who thanked users for their support.

The growth of the service has been nothing short of remarkable, reaching the milestone years earlier than it took Facebook and Instagram. The service is now one of the most-used and one of the fastest-growing social media platforms available.

Even more impressive is that the service has achieved the milestone a year after its fate seemed murky. On 3 August 2020, U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to ban the service in the United States over supposed national security concerns if negotiations for the company to be purchased by an American company failed. A planned ban of the app on 20 September 2020 was postponed by a week and then blocked by a federal judge. President Biden revoked the ban in a new executive order in June 2021.

RELATED: Shake It Off: Taylor Swift & Six Other Celebs Who Finally Joined TikTok In 2021

The app has been banned by the government of India since June 2020, its largest overseas market with more than 200 million users.

The company previously said it had about 55 million global users by January 2018. That number rose to more than 271 million by December 2018, 508 million by December 2019, and 689 million by July 2020.

TikTok users worldwide are busy creating trends, although sometimes dangerous, but a few are also becoming household names and monetizing the popularity they’ve found on the platform. Khabane Lame, who makes short speechless reaction videos, has gone from unemployed to amassing a fortune through brand deals. The services most popular creator, Charli D'Amelio, recently made her feature film debut with a voice role in the 2020 animated film StarDog and TurboCat and starred in the Hulu docuseries The D'Amelio Show in 2021.

TikTok may have a billion monthly users now, but it still has a way to go if it plans on seizing the social media crown. Currently, Facebook has roughly 2.89 billion monthly active users. According to Forbes, Facebook might have a reason to be concerned. It took the social media juggernaut eight years to reach 1 billion users, twice as long as it took TikTok.

READ NEXT: 10 Richest TikTokers From 'Hype House', Ranked by Income 

Source: Variety, Forbes