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ByteDance
TechTech Trends

Can Lemon8 replicate TikTok’s global success, as Chinese owner ByteDance fights US app ban?

  • ByteDance’s Lemon8 has become the most downloaded lifestyle app on Apple’s App Store in the US after launching in the market this year
  • Global users from Japan to Thailand find Lemon8 appealing, partly because it has no directly comparable Western rivals, according to one analyst

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The Lemon8 app seen on a smartphone. Photo: Bloomberg
Xinmei Shen
ByteDance, the Chinese company fighting a ban of its flagship app TikTok in the United States, has seen its new app Lemon8 surge in popularity, riding on the absence of Western competitors to establish another beachhead in the market.

Lemon8 lets users share photos, videos, and text, which are viewable to subscribers of the posting accounts, as well as millions of other users that the app’s algorithms have determined would be interested in that content. Together, these posts form an endless feed that users can scroll through continuously, similar to short video app TikTok.

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TikTok influencers rally against potential US ban

TikTok influencers rally against potential US ban

Available for download in the US since earlier this year, Lemon8 marched into the top 10 rankings across all categories in Apple’s App Store on March 27, and has topped the lifestyle category for the past week.

In Japan, where Lemon8 launched in 2020, it became the second-most downloaded lifestyle app on the iOS store last July, and remained at the fifth spot last week. It topped rankings in Thailand’s iOS app store last year, according to data.ai.

Lemon8 is appealing to global users, partly because it has no directly comparable rival in Western markets, according to Jacob Cooke, co-founder and CEO of WPIC Marketing + Technologies, an e-commerce consultancy based in China.

While Lemon8 and ByteDance’s competitor at home, Xiaohongshu, are commonly compared to Instagram and Pinterest, the Chinese and Western platforms are “fundamentally different”, said Cooke.
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