Since TikTok faces the US ban, China RedNote surpasses Apple’s App Store

Chinese social networking app RedNote rose to the top Apple app store, underlining the concern that TikTok will soon be effectively banned in the United States

RedNote, or Xiaohongshu, as it is known in China, is the No. 1 free app in the Apple app store from Monday, followed by TikTok’s photo-sharing app Lemon8 and OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

Many TikTok creators are rushing to find alternatives where they can continue to post videos while they wait to see what happens with TikTok, which faces a potential ban on January 19 in the United States. The Supreme Court held oral arguments last week on the April law that set the stage for a ban, and it looked like more. favorable with the arguments of the American government that ByteDance’s ownership of TikTok poses a risk to national security.

Lawyers representing TikTok and creators argued that the law purple protecting the free speech of millions of its US users.

If the Supreme Court upholds the law, third-party service providers such as Apple and Google will be penalized for supporting TikTok, thus effectively banning the app in the US. It is unclear whether President-elect Donald Trump, who takes office on January 20, will choose to enforce the law.

Some TikTok creators are implementing contingency plans by migrating to RedNote.

A content creator, who goes by the username allieusyaps, said in a place Monday that while “it’s good” that TikTok could be banned in the United States, he and other creators of TikTok “will not return to Instagram and Facebook”, because they joined RedNote.

“Look, I might not have a job next week, but we’re going to learn Mandarin baby!” the user wrote.

Another TikTok creator named Krystan Walmsley published a short video that teaches people how to set up and decorate their RedNote accounts.

“This app is so cute and it’s been a lot of fun so far,” Walmsley said.

RedNote, based in Shanghai, was founded in 2013, and has always been challenging Alibaba and Douyin, ByteDance’s version of TikTok in China, in e-commerce and social media. It had about 300 million monthly active users by July 2024, according to a report from the South China Morning Post.

RedNote was valued at $17 billion after raising funding in July from investors such as Boyu Capital and HongShan Capital Group, the former Chinese investment arm of Sequoia Capital, according to PitchBook. PitchBook has raised more than $900 million in total funding and has more than 2,000 employees.

Representatives for RedNote and TikTok did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

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