By Reuters
Feb 13 (Reuters) - TikTok returned on the U.S. app stores of Apple and Google on Thursday, as President Donald Trump delayed its ban until April 5 and assured the companies they would not be fined for distributing or maintaining the Chinese app.
The popular short video app, used by 170 million American users, started restoring its services, weeks after the app went dark, as Trump assured to revive its access prior to his inauguration.
Tiktok did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
Trump's executive order last month delayed the ban of TikTok for 75 days, allowing China's ByteDance-owned company to continue its operations in the U.S. temporarily.
The companies, which run mobile application stores or digital marketplaces where users can browse, download and update apps, would not face penalties for keeping the TikTok app up and running, the directive said.
TikTok was the second most downloaded app in the U.S., with more than 52 million downloads in 2024, according to market intelligence firm Sensor Tower.
About 52% of TikTok's total downloads were from Apple App Store, while 48% were from Google Play in the U.S. last year, Sensor Tower said.
(Reporting by Shivani Tanna, Bipasha Dey, Devika Nair in Bengaluru and Stephen Nellis in San Francisco; Editing by Rashmi Aich)
