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Panic over the US TikTok ban increased usage and downloads of a slew of alternative social media apps, including Texas-based Clapper, Chinese-owned RedNote, and Likee, a little-known platform out of Singapore with an AI-powered video feed similar to TikTok’s, according to new market research.
People in the US could not access TikTok for about 14 hours on 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 in a country that prizes free expression. About 63 percent of US teens and a third of US adults use TikTok, according to Pew Research Center.
Among the places some of them took refuge was Likee, a TikTok clone launched by the profitable Singaporean tech company Joyy in 2017. Likee had about 33.9 million monthly users as of November, most of whom were outside the US. But on Saturday, Likee drew 143 percent more downloads and 37 percent more usage in the US than the previous day, according to Sensor Tower, which estimates figures by gathering data from a sample of devices. The trend continued into Sunday, when Likee usage ticked up 11 percent from a day earlier.
Estimates from Apptopia, another company that studies the app industry, show that for months, Likee recorded less than 10,000 downloads per day in the US before jumping to nearly 167,000 on Sunday and about 286,000 on Monday. Apptopia also estimated similar bumps for TikTok competitors Clapper and Flip.
On Tuesday, shares of Likee’s parent company, Joyy, closed up about 3 percent, outpacing the average gain among its Nasdaq peers. Joyy does not 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 advertising and user purchases. Likee did not respond to a request for comment.
Other less-frequented apps, including Clapper and Snap’s Snapchat, drew increased interest over the weekend to the tune of double-digit gains in user activity. TikTok’s biggest rivals, Meta’s Instagram and Facebook, saw more modest single-digit boosts. YouTube and X, meanwhile, experienced little change in usage.
RedNote, another Chinese app that Americans had flocked to in protest during the days before the ban, added 80 percent more users Sunday than the day before, according to Sensor Tower. In the first two days of the rush earlier in the week, over 700,000 new users joined RedNote, Reuters reported. Known as Xiaohongshu in Chinese, it ranked in recent days as the most-downloaded free app on the Google and Apple app stores in the US.
TikTok came back online in the US on Sunday after president-elect Donald Trump promised to provide a temporary reprieve of the new law when he took power the following 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 came back to TikTok in droves on Sunday, with daily active users up 17 percent over Saturday, the Sensor Tower data show.
On Monday, Trump issued an executive order providing for 75 additional days to sort out the dilemma over TikTok. But the legality of his decree remains in question, and TikTok is still unavailable in US app stores. But when users search for TikTok, they’re greeted by a list of alternatives—Likee, Clapper, and others among them.
