Developed by TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, photo and video-sharing platform, Lemon8 has landed itself in the US app download charts, sitting pretty at number nine. However, the app is not new and has been creeping its way up the popularity ladder since 2020.
According to influencer marketing agency HypeFactory:
- Lemon8 has reached 16 million global downloads since March 2020
- Japan is Lemon8's top market, accounting for 38% of total installs
- The app has up to 4.25 million monthly active users
Daria Belova, Marketing & PR Director of HypeFactory has spent some time digging to understand why Lemon8 seems to have taken off out of nowhere, she says, “First off, there's FOMO. In today's world, it's easy to feel like you're missing out on something if you're not up-to-date on the latest tech. Social media and other online platforms can make this feeling even stronger, creating a sense of pressure to stay in the know.”
Why is it popular now?
Lemon8 is three years old, yet many of us haven’t been privy to its existence until now. Despite it fizzing away in the background, there’s one digital milestone that could be the answer to Lemon8’s ascent – the imminent ban of TikTok.
TikTok has already faced a national ban in India, a ban on government devices in a growing number of countries including the UK, France, the Netherlands, and Norway, and is teetering closely on the edge of a total ban in the US.
With the platform’s future up in the air, it comes as no surprise that competitor apps are surfacing in the social sphere offering a backup plan for casual users and content creators to carry on ‘as normal’. However, it’s unclear whether because Lemon8 is also owned by ByteDance, it will also face a ban along with TikTok.
Lemon8 is truly making waves in the US, with marketing activity set to pick up pace in the UK in the coming months to attract an even wider usership.
The app’s popularity – or at least the hype around it – is certainly growing, but what is the USP encouraging users to indulge in this up-and-coming app as opposed to the social platforms they know and love? Hello Partner has taken one for the team, downloading the app to see what it has to offer…
