ByteDance’s Lemon8 gains traction amid TikTok ban threat as creators push the app

Listening to so much about Lemon8 recently? You’re not the one one.

Amid a looming U.S. ban on TikTok, content material creators have been pushing the platform’s sister app. Lemon8 resembles an amalgamation of the types of short-form videos discovered on TikTok and the picture-perfect aesthetic of Instagram and Pinterest.

Like its fashionable relation, Lemon8 is owned by China-based ByteDance, whose assortment of internationally accessible apps additionally contains the video enhancing app CapCut and the picture and artwork enhancing app Hypic. As well as, the corporate operates Douyin, the Chinese language sibling of TikTok that follows Beijing’s strict censorship guidelines.

Lemon8 launched within the U.S. in 2023, a number of years after it first popped up in Asian markets. Although it garnered some media and consumer curiosity in its early days, the app hasn’t taken off as much as TikTok, which has greater than 170 million U.S. customers.

However extra folks have downloaded the app previously month, making it one of many top-ranking free apps on Apple’s app retailer. Lemon8’s recognition might doubtlessly soar additional relying on the result of a U.S. Supreme Court hearing Friday over a legislation requiring TikTok to interrupt ties with ByteDance or face a U.S. ban.

TikTok says it plans to close down the platform within the U.S. by Jan. 19 if the federal government prevails, because it did in a lower court.

Influencers beforehand partnered with Lemon8 to advertise the lesser-known app on TikTok. In latest weeks, lots of them have hailed Lemon8 because the place to go if TikTok is banned underneath federal legislation. Some have additionally been recommending it by way of paid sponsored posts tagged #lemon8partner, displaying a latest company push to generate extra customers.

However there is a hitch. The legislation, which might wipe out TikTok’s U.S. operation if it’s not bought to an accredited purchaser, states the divest-or-ban requirement applies typically to apps which can be owned or operated by ByteDance, TikTok or any of their subsidiaries. Meaning though Lemon8 and CapCut aren’t explicitly named within the statute, their futures within the U.S. are also in jeopardy.

Jasmine Enberg, an analyst at market analysis firm Emarketer, famous that the creators recommending Lemon8 is probably not conscious of the attainable implications for the opposite ByteDance apps as a result of the legislation doesn’t determine them.

The latest Lemon8 adverts on TikTok additionally could also be an indication that ByteDance is “hoping or betting” Lemon8 slips by way of the cracks as lawmakers and regulators focus their consideration on TikTok, Enberg mentioned. Representatives for the businesses didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.

To spice up Lemon8’s consumer base, TikTok introduced in November that creators would have the ability to entry a Lemon8 account with the identical account they use on TikTok, a characteristic the corporate says will improve their capability to cross-post content material. TikTok mentioned the mixing was designed to broaden creators “attain and engagement potential.”

Like TikTok, Lemon8’s fundamental feed options each a “following” part that lets customers have a look at content material from the creators they comply with and a “For You” part that recommends different posts. The newer platform additionally kinds posts into totally different classes, like relationships, wellness and skincare.

ByteDance has not disclosed the variety of international or U.S. customers on Lemon8, which is believed to be miniscule in comparison with its trend-setting sister app. Information from the analysis agency SimilarWeb signifies Lemon8 has a bit of over 1 million day by day energetic customers.

Market intelligence firm Sensor Tower estimates the app noticed a major leap in international downloads in December — a 150% improve — in comparison with a median 2% month-over-month decline final 12 months. The U.S. accounted for 70% of the month’s downloads.

The biggest variety of U.S. downloads had been carried out on Dec. 19, in line with Sensor Tower. That was the day after the Supreme Court said it could hear this week’s oral arguments over the constitutionality of the federal legislation that might ban TikTok.

The legislation passed with bipartisan support final 12 months after lawmakers and Biden administration officers expressed issues that Chinese language authorities might pressure ByteDance at hand over U.S. user data or sway public opinion in the direction of Beijing’s pursuits by manipulating the algorithm that populates customers’ feeds.

President-elect Donald Trump requested the Supreme Court docket on Dec. 27 to pause the potential TikTok ban from going into impact till he’s inaugurated and his administration can pursue a “political decision” to the difficulty.