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TikTok may be back , but that has n’t prevented other Taiwanese competition from gaining users . In the lead - up to a ban on TikTok — which kick off Sunday and lasted a day — a number of other TV apps come up through the ranks and now reign the App Store ’s Top Charts .
The Chinese app RedNote ( which is listed on the app stores as Xiaohongshu ) became the No . 1 app in the U.S. last week , follow by video apps like Clapper , Flip , and others . On Monday , followingTikTok ’s restoration of service , RedNote retained its No . 1 spot on the App Store , after havingattractedsome 700,000 new U.S. users .
TikTok users’move to RedNotewas meant to send a signal to U.S. lawmakers and Meta alike that they would rather join another Chinese app standardised to TikTok than revert to Instagram Reels .
Though TikTok is back online , the app storesaren’t yet host it for download ; app marketplaces still have to abide by U.S. jurisprudence , despite President Trump ’s assurances that he will carry the deadline for the TikTok ban .
Instead , both app stores ’ top charts retain to ponder the shift to other TikTok choice .
In Apple ’s U.S. App Store , for representative , television apps such as RedNote , Likee , Clapper , and Flip have the No . 1 , 2 , 4 , and 10 spots , severally , in the Overall Top Charts as of Monday morning . Favorited , an app consecrate to livestreams , is No . 15 .
Social net Bluesky also just added an optional custom video feed , but its app has sink out of the top 10 position it held last workweek on the U.S. App Store . It ’s No . 13 as of Monday morning on the App Store and No . 15 on Google Play .
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Still , Bluesky gain a few more downloads thanks to the TikTok prohibition and now has28.29 million users , up from 27.5 millionlast calendar week .
grant toestimates from app storage intelligence provider Appfigures , RedNote , Flip , and Clapper all see a massive growth squirt last week from single - digit thousand downloads per day to begin with in January to tens of thousand of U.S. downloads on Friday .
RedNote , meanwhile , was get hundreds of K of downloads .
RedNote gained 818,000 new U.S. installs across the App Store and Google Play during January 2025 . Because the app is focalize in Mandarin , speech learning appDuolingo also reported a 216 % spindle in U.S. userstrying to larn the speech last week .
Currently , it ’s the No . 1 app in the U.S. on the U.S. App Store and Google Play , exclude games .
Clapper , a TikTok option aimed at teenager and adult ages 17 and up , gained 646,000 downloads on the App Store and Google Play in the U.S. On Friday , it added 87,000 young downloads , or 1,030 % more than the 7,000 new downloads it get word back on January 1 , Appfigures reports . It ’s now the No . 4 top app ( turf out games ) on the U.S. App Store and No . 2 on Google Play .
Likee , a short television app , is No . 2 on the U.S. App Store and No . 3 on Google Play . It saw a monumental surge of maturation , moving from No . 202 on the U.S. App Store on Saturday to No . 2 by 3 a.m. on Sunday , Appfigures says . In total , it project 283,000 downloads during January so far . On Google Play , it jumped to the No . 8 emplacement across both apps and game on Sunday nighttime and has since dropped to No . 11 . It ’s currently the No . 3 app ( excluding secret plan ) .
For Android users , the brusque video app Scoopz made it into the No . 4 position on Google Play while the short drama app ReelShort is No . 7 on Google Play ’s tilt of top apps , excluding games .
Lastly , Flip , which focuses on social commerce , grew by 580,000 downloads in January , the data point . ( However , Flip also ran many TikTok ads over the past calendar week , leading to those gains . ) It ’s No . 10 on the U.S. App Store and No . 9 on Google Play ’s top chart , excluding game .
Despite many TikTok users signal that they would n’t use Instagram , Meta ’s app continued to deem a high social station on both app stores , including No . 8 on the U.S. Apple App Store Top Apps chart and No . 5 on Google Play ’s Top Apps chart as of Monday morning .
VPN apps saw a brief surge too
After the TikTok ban went into burden , U.S. users forthwith tried installing VPN apps to work around the confinement to no help . ( TikTok ’s mobile app remained blocked even when VPNs were used ) .
Still , thistemporarily drovea number of new U.S. users to VPN apps like VPN — Super Unlimited Proxy , which grew from the No . 91 app to the No . 3 app within 36 hours . Another VPN app , Fast VPN Super , climbed 155 spots during that same time , and Nord VPN hit No . 9 after climbing 160 spots in the top charts .
Other apps that rose hundreds of spotlight overnight after the ban let in X - VPN , Proton VPN , Free VPN .org , and Express VPN .
The app shop chart are probable to soon transfer again as U.S. users realise they can return to TikTok and decide to move off from at least some of their recent backup choices for a transposition .
