TikTok retained its position as the world’s most downloaded non-game app in May with 79 million downloads, up 35 percent compared to April, according to mobile market analytics firm Sennsor Tower.

Detail: Despite the double digits month-over-month growth, downloads of TikTok were down 29 percent year on year.

The figure is the combination of international app TikTok and the Chinese version Douyin, both owned and operated by Beijing-based ByteDance.

The countries with the largest number of downloads were Brazil and China, accounting for 16% and 12% of total downloads.

The US, which had the second largest number of downloads from December to March fell out of top two place as TikTok has facing political uncertainties since July, 2020, when the former U.S president Donald Trump threated to ban the app unless ByteDance divested TikTok’s U.S operations.

Joe Biden has put legal action against TikTok on hold.

Context: TikTok owner Bytedance has been preparing its IPO for a while, but the possible U.S ban led to delay as Bytedance must find a proper solution for the corporate structure of TikTok that please both Beijing and Washington

In March, TikTok owner ByteDance has hired Xiaomi’s senior executive Shou Zi Chew as chief finance officer, signaling the Beijing based tech giant is coming a step closer toward initial public offering of some of its businesses.

The CFO role is newly created by Bytedance that no one filled this role before. Chew will be based in Singapore

Chew joined Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi in 2015 as CFO of the company, and it also held various position later including president of Xiaomi’s international business. Before joining Xiaomi, Chew had also worked at Goldman Sachs with analytic role for TMT sector and partner at DST Investment Management, an early investor at ByteDance.