Lemon8, from TikTok parent company, is raking downloads
China bakes another social media platform for the world. The parent company of TikTok, ByteDance, is behind Lemon8, the new platform. These guys understand how to build these new species of digital companies at scale.
An app from TikTok's parent company is suddenly stirring buzz in the U.S. Lemon8, first launched by ByteDance in 2020, was rolled out stateside in February and has been installed 650,000 times in the U.S. in the past week and a half, Axios reports. It features a mix of videos and still photos with an "artsy, colorful and aspirational" aesthetic, positioning it to compete with Pinterest and Meta's Instagram. Lemon8 is especially popular in Japan, which has accounted for more than a third of its more than 17 million lifetime downloads.
Lemon8 is likely to face more scrutiny as its popularity grows. U.S. lawmakers have threatened to ban TikTok over data-sharing concerns. ByteDance earned US$25 billion in 2022, up 79% from 2021, The Financial Times reports, citing anonymous sources.