---
title: "Which came first, Amazon or TikTok?"
description: "Amazon vs TikTok: Amazon came first, by 22 years — 1994 against 2016. What happened in each case, and why the dates are often given differently."
url: https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/amazon-vs-tiktok/
site: "At One Place"
---

# Which came first, Amazon or TikTok?

**Which came first, Amazon or TikTok?: Amazon**

1994 — 22 years before TikTok

Amazon came first, by 22 years. Jeff Bezos incorporated the company in Washington state.

## Side by side

|  | Amazon | TikTok |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Year | 1994 | 2016 |
| Date | 1994-07-05 | — |
| Category | technology | technology |
| What happened | Jeff Bezos incorporated the company in Washington state. | ByteDance launched Douyin in China; TikTok followed abroad in 2017. |

## Amazon

Amazon was incorporated on 5 July 1994, originally as Cadabra, and the website opened in July 1995 selling only books. The 1994 incorporation date is used here because it is the company's own founding date; if you mean the shop, 1995 is the answer. Either way it predates Google by three or four years and eBay by about a year.

## TikTok

The app launched in China as Douyin in September 2016 and internationally as TikTok in 2017. What made it global was the 2018 acquisition and merger of Musical.ly, a lip-sync app that had launched in 2014 and already had a large Western user base — so part of TikTok is two years older than TikTok. Douyin and TikTok remain separate apps on separate infrastructure.

## Common questions

### Which came first, Amazon or TikTok?

Amazon, by 22 years — 1994 against 2016.

### When did Amazon start?

1994. Jeff Bezos incorporated the company in Washington state.

### When did TikTok start?

2016. ByteDance launched Douyin in China; TikTok followed abroad in 2017.

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## Sources

- Wikidata — Wikimedia Foundation (https://www.wikidata.org/) [CC0 1.0]
- Typical range compiled from manufacturer specifications — At One Place (/about/)