ByteDance, owner of short-video app TikTok, the international version of the Chinese app Douyin, overtook Baidu and Tencent in the digital advertising market during the first half of 2019.

As the second-largest digital advertiser, ByteDance took 23 percent of all digital media spend in the first half of the year, equivalent to 50 billion yuan (7 billion U.S. dollars), according to consultancy agency, R3.

Alibaba still takes the biggest share – 33 percent of all digital media spending, or 72.1 billion yuan, for the first half of the year. Baidu and Tecent made up 17 and 14 percent, or 36.9 billion and 29.8 billion yuan, respectively.

In the first half of 2019, ByteDance's advertisement revenue grew by 113 percent year on year, with most of the growth coming from its Douyin and news app Jinri Toutiao.

Read more: Chinese short video platform growing fast yet with challenges overseas

App analytics site Sensor Tower reported last Thursday that TikTok has been downloaded 1.5 billion times already.

Sensor Tower also notes that the video-sharing app hit a billion downloads in February this year. So far, it has raked in 614 million downloads, which is six percent stronger than the same period last year.

The app is the third most-downloaded app outside of gaming this year. WhatsApp and Messenger are the top two, while Facebook and Instagram are the following four and five.

Read more: Short video app leads the charge in China's push for global brands