RedNote Sings in Light of TikTok’s Looming Ban

Key Takeaways:

• In the week leading up to the TikTok ban (1/13/25-1/19/25), RedNote US mobile app downloads increased 300% compared to the previous 30 days (12/14/24-1/12/25) as consumers flocked to the app ahead of an anticipated TikTok ban

  • The heightened US demand for RedNote is most strongly reflected in its app store ranking as it became the top overall free app across the US Apple App store and the US Google Play store by January 14, 2025 and has remained there for the past week

• In Jan’25 MTD, the US accounted for 18% of RedNote’s global downloads, up from merely 2% of global downloads in Jan’24, highlighting how the looming TikTok ban drove increased US adoption 

• Major US social networks saw smaller lifts in US downloads and DAUs, with the largest spike being a 30% WoW increase in US downloads for Instagram. US DAUs among these apps saw minimal change in the week leading up to TikTok’s ban, as only Instagram saw a marginal 1% WoW increase

• Snapchat, DramaBox, Meta, and Clapper increased their US ad spend by 80x, 50%, 30%, and 27% WoW, respectively, leading up to the TikTok ban. Likely in an effort to capitalize on and expand consumer interest, RedNote increased its US ad spend in 2025 YTD by a whopping 110x YoY

• A strong indicator that the majority of the social media advertisers were leveraging the TikTok ban as a way to increase engagement is due to the fact that 75% of the social media advertisers were allocating the highest portion of their ad spend to TikTok, with approximately 45% of each brand’s budget allocated to the platform

For more information, request the full report from reports@sensortower.com.