Snap CEO Evan Spiegel (pictured) suggested social media app TikTok could become more popular than Facebook-owned Instagram, spurred by the growing popularity of short-form video, Business Insider reported.

Spiegel admitted he was “a big fan” of TikTok during an informal conversation at the Digital Life Design (DLD) Conference in Munich.

The head of Snap stated it was possible for the app, owned by Chinese developer ByteDance, to become bigger than Instagram because its “talent-based content is often more interesting than status-based content”.

TikTok, which was launched globally in 2017, was downloaded more times in 2019 than rival platforms Instagram and Snapchat, data from analyst company App Annie showed. The research outfit also stated the time spent in the app globally grew 210 per cent year-on-year in 2019.

By mid-November 2019, SensorTower figures showed TikTok had racked up a total of 1.5 billion downloads and generated user spend of $175 million since its launch.

In October 2019, the company came under fire from US senators who claimed TikTok was obliged to surrender data to the Chinese government. The company rejected the claims, stating it had never been asked to remove content and would refuse any such request.