Ofcom's app-usage figures come from a panel, not a census

The test

Ofcom's Online Nation report is an annual publication on UK internet use, and its most recent edition, published 10 December 2025, tracks short-form video app usage as part of a wider ranking of the UK's most-used social apps. The report states that its analysis of app reach and time spent 'draws primarily on data from Ipsos iris, the UKOM-accredited source for online audience measurement,' with May 2025 as its primary reference period. Under that method, the 2025 report states that TikTok reached 56% of online adults in May 2025, with visitor numbers driven by younger users, and that TikTok's daily audience rose 37% year on year to 10.4 million.

What the evidence says

The reach and time-spent numbers are not Ofcom's own survey answers; they are licensed panel data from Ipsos iris, a third-party measurement firm that Ofcom names throughout the report rather than presenting the figures as its own metering. Ipsos iris's own description of its method states that the panel is 'our 10,000 strong, UKOM endorsed panel,' built on passive tracking software installed on panellists' devices, plus site-and-app-level census measurement and an establishment survey used to set population targets. Ofcom's report does not re-verify this data; it reports what Ipsos supplies and attributes it accordingly, a different evidentiary status than a figure a platform discloses about itself.

The sample and the variance

Ipsos iris measures UK internet users aged 18 and over on personally used smartphones, tablets and computers; it is a panel-based estimate, not a population census, drawing on a continuously measured monthly sample that Ofcom's related methodology notes put at 10,700 adults for a comparable May reference period. The figures cover platform-level reach and time for whole apps such as TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram and YouTube; they do not separate a feature like TikTok's main feed from a livestream tab, or Instagram's feed from Reels specifically, so a claim about one particular in-app format cannot be sourced to this report alone.

What to try next

A reader using Online Nation's app figures for short-form video should cite Ipsos iris as the measurement source, not Ofcom, when precision about provenance matters, and should treat year-on-year comparisons as this panel's estimate of change rather than a platform-confirmed figure. This is an editorial practice: pair a panel-based reach number with the report's own stated reference month, since Online Nation shifts its comparison base period with every edition.

• Is the cited figure from Ofcom's own survey work, such as its Online Experiences Tracker, or from the licensed Ipsos iris panel data reported alongside it?
• Does the number describe a whole app's reach and time, or a specific in-app format such as Reels or a livestream tab that Online Nation does not separately track?
• Which reference month does the figure use, and has that comparison year changed since the previous edition?

Online Nation is a credible annual snapshot precisely because it is transparent about whose data it is repeating. That transparency is lost if a reader treats a licensed panel estimate as Ofcom's own direct measurement.