With the TikTok ban looming, this Chinese app is becoming popular with Americans
NEW YORK – Chinese social media app RedNote, known in China as Xiaohongshu, gained nearly 3 million users in the US in a single day earlier this week as a wave of “TikTok Refugees” claimed to be participating, according to new data from analytics firm Similarweb.
The Chinese app had about 3.4 million daily active users on both iOS and Android devices in the United States as of Monday, up from less than 700,000 the day before and about 300,000 last week, according to estimates by Similarweb.
The influx of users has been boosted by a US ban on TikTok, which is used by 170 million Americans, because of national security concerns.
The data shows an even bigger swing for RedNote among US users this week than previously known, explaining its dramatic rise to the top of the download rankings down of the US app store. Reuters reported on Tuesday that more than 700,000 new users have joined the app in just two days.
It also shows the platform is racing ahead of sister app TikTok Lemon8, which saw moderate growth after parent company ByteDance linked the login functions of the two apps in November.
Lemon8 had 1.7 million daily active users in the United States on Monday, up from about 1.1 million in previous weeks, according to Similarweb.
Meanwhile, TikTok usage in the United States fell before the ban, down 2.1% from the previous week, to about 82.2 million daily active users, Similarweb said.
Many Chinese users on RedNote welcome newcomers and enthusiastically answer questions on topics such as famous Chinese dishes, tourist attractions in the city, and even China’s birth policy. China, though there are also signs that US users are testing the limits set by Beijing’s censorship authorities.
China has for years tightly controlled cyberspace through its “Great Wall” censorship architecture and blocked foreign social media networks like Instagram and X.
US users who have amassed a following and a career on TikTok for months had hoped that they would find a way to avoid the US ban passed into law in 2023, but the resignations seemed as will happen this week as the January 19 deadline approaches.
(Reporting by Katie Paul in New York; Editing by Matthew Lewis)
