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TikTok possessor ByteDance ’s efforts to make its Pinterest - stroke - Instagram competitor Lemon8 take off in the U.S. have n’t yet panned out . Since launching in the U.S. to begin with this class , the Lemon8 app has only view around 2.6 million total U.S. downloads , according to new data from app store marketplace intelligence providerAppfigures . This paltry turnout comes despite asizable influencer marketing pushwhere a number of TikTok creators were praising the app to their followers , after report indicated the U.S. was possibly locomote forward with a TikTok proscription .
The timing did not look to be coincidental , in other words . If TikTok were about to lose its U.S. interview , ByteDance viewed Lemon8 as a possible backup plan , and it was leveraging the monumental TikTok interview to facilitate it maturate . Influencers bluster the app on TikTok began intemperately post about the app in the first quarter of the year , describing the lifestyle biotic community in glowing , positive term , like “ cunning ” and “ esthetically pleasing , ” and compare the app to a cross between Pinterest and Instagram .
useable in Japan as of 2020 , and democratic in other Eastern market like Thailand and Indonesia , the app did n’t earn much adhesive friction until April 2020 , when installs grew from less than a thousand per month to 13,000 . The app then reach its first all - metre high for monthly downloads when it peak at 292,000 in July 2021 , Appfigures ’ data shows . As it expanded in 2022 , it top out again with 1.5 million downloads in July 2022 , guide to a sum of 10.6 million downloads for the full yr .
This yr , Lemon8 began softly roll out to the U.S. and U.K. , and ByteDance began boosting the app via creator merchandising . Insider reportedin February , for object lesson , that ByteDance had paid creators to post on Lemon8 to seed its initial U.S. content . The following calendar month , creators began posting to TikTokusing like language in their overly positive videos . Within 24 hours in late March , some 350 + videos fit the hunt terminus “ Lemon8 ” come along on TikTok , most of them positivistic review . Some creators even aver they were downloading it in sheath TikTok got banish .
Despite ostensibly following a hand of sorts , none of the video recording we had encountered at the time were marked as buy at content . This helped to present Lemon8 as an app that was growing organically through word - of - sass recommendations
But TikTok did n’t end up banned in the U.S. — though it has been bannedfromnumerousgovernmentdevices , at someuniversities , and inthe state of Montana , starting in January 2024 . ( The latter is being challenge in motor hotel . ) And even if it is banish or forced to twirl out a sales event at some point , it does n’t appear that Lemon8 will be an gentle renewal . In plus , most of those installs come from “ spikes , ” not a rising trend . ( Perhaps the TikTok viral effect , in fact . )
iOS accounted for most of the U.S. downloads , at 2.5 million , and the app is ranked No . 2 in the Lifestyle category on the U.S. App Store . However , it go up and down in the Top Overall chart . As of the meter the data was compile , it was No . 90 Overall . Today , it ’s No . 70 on the Top Apps Chart in the U.S. Though its rankings are adequate enough , the total installs are still fairly low for something that ’s supposed to slide in to replace TikTok in the consequence of a forbiddance .
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September 2023 was Lemon8 ’s biggest month in terms of U.S. downloads , as it saw 525,000 Modern installs . Downloads do n’t equalize to the numeral of active users , of course , so Lemon8 ’s usage is potential even lower . For compare , TikTok had more than 150 million monthly combat-ready users in the U.S.as of March 2023 .
Of of course , there ’s still the theory that ByteDance could leverage TikTok again to supercharge Lemon8 ’s grip in the U.S. For instance , product news firmWatchful.ai see a few month ago thatTikTok was developing a feature that would allow exploiter to sync their Lemon8 posts to TikTok , and then add sounds and music using TikTok ’s editor . TikTok would n’t respond to requests for input on the matter when we asked .
At the time Lemon8 had roughly 25 million worldwide downloads , per market intelligence firmdata.ai .
Today , its full-grown markets by entire downloads are Japan ( 7.6 million ) , Thailand ( 6.5 million ) and the U.S. ( 2.6 million ) .
TikTok ban backup programme ? ByteDance - owned Instagram challenger Lemon8 hits the US App Store ’s Top 10
