Panic over the US TikTok ban has boosted usage and downloads of a slew of alternative social media apps, including Texas-based Clapper, Chinese-owned RedNote and Likee, a little-known platform from Singapore with an AI-powered video stream similar to TikTok’s, according to new market research.
People in the US were unable to access TikTok for about 14 hours late Saturday into Sunday after a federal law aimed at curbing China’s alleged influence over the app went into effect and triggered an unprecedented incident of internet censorship caused in a country that prizes free expression. About 63 percent of American teenagers and a third of American adults use TikTok, according to Pew Research Center.
Among the places some of them took refuge was Likee, a TikTok clone launched in 2017 by the for-profit Singaporean tech company Joyy. Likee had about 33.9 million monthly users as of November, most of which were outside the US. But on Saturday, Likee drew 143 percent more downloads and 37 percent more usage in the U.S. than the previous day, according to Sensor Tower, which estimates numbers by collecting data from a sample of devices. The trend continued until Sunday, when Likee usage rose 11 percent from a day earlier.
Estimates from Apptopia, another company that studies the app industry, show that Likee logged fewer than 10,000 downloads a day in the US for months before jumping to nearly 167,000 on Sunday and about 286,000 on Monday. Apptopia has also planned similar jabs at TikTok rivals Clapper and Flip.
Shares of Likee’s parent company Joyy closed up about 3 percent on Tuesday, beating the average gain among its Nasdaq peers. Joyy doesn’t break out Likee’s financials, but it and some of its other sibling apps collectively generated about $73 million in sales during last year’s third quarter from ads and user purchases. Likee did not respond to a request for comment.
Other less frequent apps, including Clapper and Snap’s Snapchat, attracted increased interest over the weekend with double-digit increases in user activity. TikTok’s biggest rivals, Meta’s Instagram and Facebook, saw more modest single-digit boosts. YouTube and X, meanwhile, saw little change in usage.
RedNote, another Chinese app that Americans flocked to in protest in the days before the ban, added 80 percent more users on Sunday than the previous day, according to Sensor Tower. In the first two days of the rush earlier this week, more than 700,000 new users joined RedNote, Reuters reported. Known as Xiaohongshu in Chinese, it has ranked as the most downloaded free app in the US Google and Apple app stores in recent days.
TikTok came back online in the US on Sunday after President-elect Donald Trump promised a temporary reprieve from the new law when he took office the next day. The statute, signed by former President Biden last year, effectively bans TikTok by threatening to fine web hosting providers and app stores that work with its parent company, Chinese tech giant ByteDance, unless it divests its ownership in TikTok. Users returned to TikTok in droves on Sunday, with daily active users up 17 percent from Saturday, Sensor Tower data showed.
On Monday, Trump issued an executive order allowing for 75 additional days to sort out the dilemma over TikTok. But the legality of his decree remains in doubt, and TikTok is still not available in US app stores. But when users search for TikTok, they are greeted with a list of alternatives—Likee, Clapper, and others among them.