Barely a year and a half ago, TikTok briefly went dark in the US, capping a yearslong saga that threatened to remove one of the world’s most popular social media apps from one of its largest markets.
ByteDance eventually found a way through. In January, it completed a deal that transferred control of TikTok’s US data, algorithms, and app security to a majority US-owned joint venture. ByteDance retained a 19.9% stake, while continuing to oversee revenue-generating businesses, including e-commerce and advertising, through another subsidiary.
The latest numbers from TikTok Shop offer another measure of what was commercially at stake.
TikTok Shop generated an estimated USD 11.8 billion in gross merchandise value (GMV) in the US in the first half of 2026, more than double the same period last year, according to a new report by Singapore-based research firm Momentum Works and e-commerce analytics provider Tabcut. The 103% year-on-year increase made the US TikTok Shop’s largest individual market, overtaking Indonesia.
That growth is increasingly visible beyond TikTok’s own ecosystem.
Transaction data from Consumer Edge found that TikTok Shop accounted for around 1.5% of total US online retail spending in the fourth quarter of 2025, gaining about 50 basis points over the previous year. The research firm said the platform’s share had risen steadily since its US launch in late 2023.
The figure remains small relative to the overall US e-commerce market. But the growth is notable for a shopping platform that did not operate in the country less than three years ago.
Consumer Edge had already identified TikTok Shop’s growing footprint while a ban still appeared possible. In January 2025, it estimated that TikTok Shop represented nearly 0.5% of tagged US online spending in 2024. At the time, it said a TikTok exit could create an opportunity for competitors to recapture spending that had shifted to the platform.
That exit never happened. Instead, TikTok Shop kept expanding.
From videos to a marketplace
Momentum Works estimates TikTok Shop generated USD 50.3 billion in global GMV in the first half of 2026, up 92% year-on-year. The US accounted for roughly 23% of that total.
The research firm expects global GMV to reach USD 123.5 billion for the full year, although that figure remains a projection. Southeast Asia is still the largest contributor collectively, but the US has overtaken each of the region’s individual markets.
There are also signs that TikTok Shop’s US business is changing as it grows.
TikTok built its commerce proposition around an advantage conventional marketplaces lacked: a vast stream of content that could create buying intent before users actively searched for a product. That formula has been particularly effective in Southeast Asia, where TikTok Shop’s mix of short videos, live streaming, and commerce helped it enter a market long dominated by platforms such as Shopee and Lazada.
But the model developing in the US looks different.
In the first half of 2025, videos accounted for 50% of TikTok Shop’s attributed US GMV, compared with 36% generated through Shop, its marketplace interface, and 14% through live streaming. One year later, Shop had become the largest channel at 51.4%. Video fell to 40.4%, while live declined to 8.2%.
The shift does not necessarily mean TikTok’s content advantage is weakening. Momentum Works said videos continue to drive product discovery, while users are increasingly completing purchases through Shop after searching for and comparing products.
In other words, TikTok Shop is starting to operate more like a marketplace in its own right, rather than simply a checkout function attached to viral videos.
Live streaming shows how far the US model has diverged from TikTok Shop’s more mature Asian markets. Nearly 69% of US influencers analyzed by Momentum Works used video exclusively to promote products in the first half of the year, while only 6.5% relied solely on live streaming. In China and Southeast Asia, live commerce is more often built around professional hosts and multichannel networks.
Live streaming remains effective at the top end in the US. Eight of the ten highest-grossing influencers generated most of their TikTok Shop GMV through live sessions. But that concentration has not made live streaming the dominant shopping format across the wider market.
More sellers, more competition
Seller growth has been just as swift.
The number of TikTok Shop stores in the US nearly tripled from 475,000 in the first half of 2025 to 1.35 million a year later, according to Momentum Works. More than three-quarters recorded sales.
Growth was especially strong among larger sellers. Around 5,700 stores generated more than USD 1 million in GMV, up from 752 a year earlier. Of those, 506 exceeded USD 10 million, compared with just 36 in the first half of 2025.
The ten largest stores generated a combined USD 748 million in GMV, up 177% year-on-year. Medicube and Dr.Melaxin each exceeded USD 100 million, while merchants ranging from QVC to Crocs ranked among the ten largest sellers.
Consumer Edge’s data also points to a widening customer base. In the fourth quarter of 2025, 21% of Shein shoppers also made purchases on TikTok Shop. Cross-shopping among customers of Hollister, Victoria’s Secret, Nike, Ulta, H&M, and Zara ranged 10–14%, suggesting TikTok Shop is increasingly overlapping with established retail audiences rather than operating within a separate social commerce niche.
That scale, however, is also making TikTok Shop more competitive for merchants. Momentum Works found that average prices fell in 21 of 27 product categories, while eight of the ten largest influencers by GMV were new to the ranking in the first half of 2026.
Even established sellers could grow without maintaining their position. Tarte Cosmetics increased its GMV by 73% but fell from first to fifth among stores, while Halara doubled its GMV and slipped from second to sixth.
Momentum Works described the US market as increasingly easy to enter, but harder to win.
TikTok Shop remains a relatively small part of US e-commerce, and its rapid growth does not guarantee that it can challenge more established marketplaces. While the US is now its largest individual market, further expansion may depend on whether it can keep growing as competition among sellers intensifies and it takes on entrenched players such as Amazon.