With TikTok‘s ban in the United States just days away, users of the app are pushing some previously little-known apps to the top of the Apple and Google stores. The app that seems to have benefited the most so far is a Chinese social media app called “RedNote” or Xiaohongshu, which translates to “little red book.”
The TikTok-like app for creating short videos is currently the number one app in Apple’s App Store and is ranked 34th in the Google Play Store. RedNote is becoming increasingly popular as many TikTok creators have started writing about their experiences using the Chinese app. Meanwhile, on RedNote, some creators have shared videos about how they welcome “TikTok refugees” to the service.
The app is set up very similarly to TikTok, with the ability to vertically scroll through a feed of short videos based on your interests. Most of the app’s interface is written in Chinese, so navigation can be a bit confusing, although TikTok has some helpful videos explaining how to change the app’s language to English.
Although RedNote seems to have come out of nowhere, the app has been popular in China for years. CNBC reports that the app, which is more than a decade old, is seen as a competitor to ByteDance’s Douyin and e-commerce giant Alibaba, which has about 300 million users.
RedNote is not the only app that has received support from concerned TikTok users. Another ByteDance app, Lemon8, is also trending in the Apple and Google stores, where it ranks second and first, respectively. But while TikTok itself has occasionally boosted the app’s popularity, Lemon8 is likely to face the same fate as TikTok if the Supreme Court sides with the Biden administration, which seems likely.
Another video app called Flip, which describes itself as “a place where social meets shopping,” is also trending on both app stores. The app from Los Angeles-based Humans, Inc. offers short videos and an in-app storefront. It is currently ranked 14th in the Google store and fourth in the Apple store. According to Crunchbase, the company was valued at over $1 billion last year.
Another app that seems to have benefited from TikTok’s upcoming ban is something called “ReelShort”. While the app’s name sounds like a play on Instagram’s “reels” and YouTube’s “shorts” – both of which are well-known TikTok clones – the app seems to be less of a TikTok clone than a streaming platform that mimics it. The app features small fragments of long “movies” with bizarre titles like “The Heiress Blacklisted Her Husband” and “In Love with Alpha.” ReelShort is ranked seventh in the App Store and second in Google Play.
While it is unlikely that any of these apps will remain popular for long, the fact that so many relatively unknown apps have risen to the top of the app stores so quickly is another sign of how influential TikTok users and creators can be. It also emphasizes that banning TikTok alone will not be able to limit the influence of Chinese tech companies in the United States.
