Panic because of the A US TikTok ban has boosted usage and downloads of a host of alternative social media platforms, including Texas-based Chinese-owned Clapper. RedNoteand Likee, a little known platform from Singapore with an AI-powered video stream similar to that of TikTok, according to new market research.
People in the United States could not access TikTok for about 14 hours late Saturday into Sunday after a federal law aimed at curbing China’s alleged influence over the application went into effect and triggered an unprecedented incident of internet censorship 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 by the profitable Singaporean tech company Joyy in 2017. Likee had about 33.9 million monthly users in November, most of whom were outside the United States. But on Saturday, Likee attracted 143 percent more downloads and 37 percent more usage in the U.S. than the previous day, according to Sensor Towerwhich estimates figures by collecting data from a sample of devices. The trend continued until Sunday, when Likee usage was up 11 percent from a day earlier.
Estimates from Apptopia, another company that studies the app industry, show that for months, Likee recorded fewer than 10,000 downloads a day in the United States 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 down about 3 percent, beating the average gain among its Nasdaq peers. Joyy does not break out Likee’s finances, but it and some of its other sibling apps collectively generated about $73 million in sales last quarter from advertising and user purchases. Likee did not respond to a request for comment.
Other less frequented apps, including Snap’s Clapper and Snapchat, raised interest over the weekend in terms 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 program that Americans had flocked to in protest in the days leading up to the ban, added 80 percent more users on Sunday than the day before, according to Sensor Tower. In the first two days of the rush earlier in the week, more than 700,000 new users joined RedNote, Reuters reported. Known as Xiaohongshu in Chinese, it ranked in recent days as the most downloaded free program in the Google and Apple stores in the United States.
TikTok is back online in the United States on Sunday after the election, President Donald Trump promised to grant a temporary ban on 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 internet service 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 on Saturday, Sensor Tower data shows.
on monday, Trump issued an executive order providing 75 more days to resolve the TikTok dilemma. 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 are greeted by a list of alternatives – Likee, Clapper, and others among them.
