ByteDance
ByteDance attempt to establish its Instagram and Pinterest rival Lemon8, in the United States has fallen short of expectations. Despite a significant influencer marketing campaign featuring TikTok creators endorsing the app to their followers, Lemon8 has only managed to amass approximately 2.6 million downloads in the US since its launch earlier this year. This underwhelming response is surprising, especially given the potential threat of a TikTok ban in the US, which ByteDance sought to counter by promoting Lemon8 using its existing TikTok audience.
The timing of Lemon8’s US launch appeared to be driven by concerns about a potential TikTok ban. To safeguard its foothold in the US, ByteDance leveraged TikTok’s massive user base to facilitate Lemon8’s growth. Influencers started actively promoting the app on TikTok in the first quarter of the year, praising it as “cute” and “aesthetically pleasing” and drawing comparisons to a blend of Pinterest and Instagram.
Lemon8, initially available in Japan from 2020 and popular in other Eastern markets like Thailand and Indonesia, experienced significant growth in April 2020, with monthly installs increasing from less than a thousand to 13,000. The app achieved its highest monthly download peak in July 2021 with 292,000 downloads, and it peaked again in July 2022 with 1.5 million downloads, accumulating a total of 10.6 million downloads for the year.
This year, Lemon8 expanded its reach to the US and the UK, while ByteDance bolstered the app through creator marketing. In February, ByteDance paid creators to generate initial content for Lemon8 in the US. In the subsequent month, creators on TikTok began to use similar language in their highly positive videos, creating an impression that Lemon8 was growing organically through word-of-mouth recommendations. Notably, these videos were not marked as sponsored content.
However, despite their efforts to prepare for a potential TikTok ban, TikTok remains operational in the US, albeit with restrictions in certain areas. Even if TikTok were to face a ban or be required to divest in the future, it does not seem that Lemon8 will easily replace it. Most of Lemon8’s installs resulted from sporadic spikes, not a sustained upward trend, possibly due to the viral effect of TikTok.
iOS accounted for the majority of Lemon8’s US downloads at 2.5 million, and the app ranked as the second-most popular in the Lifestyle category on the US App Store. However, its overall position in the Top Overall chart fluctuated, with it standing at 90th place at the time of data collection. Currently, it ranks 70th on the Top Apps Chart in the US. Although the app’s rankings are respectable, the total number of installs remains relatively low for something intended to replace TikTok in case of a ban.
September 2023 marked Lemon8’s highest month in terms of US downloads, with 525,000 new installations. However, downloads do not necessarily translate to active users, and it is likely that Lemon8’s actual usage is even lower. To put things in perspective, as of March 2023, TikTok boasted over 150 million monthly active users in the US.
There remains the possibility that ByteDance could leverage TikTok again to bolster Lemon8’s presence in the US. Notably, TikTok was reportedly developing a feature that would enable users to synchronize their Lemon8 posts to TikTok and add sounds and music using TikTok’s editor. TikTok declined to comment on this matter when approached for clarification.
At the time of this report, Lemon8 had garnered approximately 25 million worldwide downloads, according to market intelligence firm data.ai. Its primary markets by total downloads currently include Japan (7.6 million), Thailand (6.5 million), and the US (2.6 million).
