- Duolingo shares have jumped this week, as the number of Americans learning Mandarin on the app has soared 216%. That’s as China’s RedNote is now the most downloaded free app on Apple’s App Store ahead of the TikTok ban.
Duolingo shares climbed 10% this week as Americans turn to Chinese-language social media app RedNote and rush to learn Mandarin ahead of TikTok’s ban slated for Sunday.
Duolingo told Fortune that Mandarin learners on the app have jumped 216% so far this year to 11.3 million. That’s no accident as Duolingo is on the TikTok rival as well.
“Our marketing team is forward-thinking and already has a presence on Red,” a Duolingo spokesperson told Fortune. Active since May of last year, Duolingo’s RedNote account has more than 400,000 followers.
By comparison, Spanish saw a 40% increase over the course of the same timeframe but remains the most popular language on Duolingo with 48.8 million learners, CNBC reported.
On Friday, the Supreme Court upheld the U.S. law banning TikTok unless it’s sold by its China-based parent company due to national security risks, related to the ByteDance’s ties to the Chinese government.
President Joe Biden has signaled he won’t enforce the ban, and President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to find a way to save the app. But until there’s a solution, third-party platforms may not want to risk violating the law by supporting TikTok, and ByteDance has threatened to shut it down.
With just a few days left before the law goes into effect on Sunday, TikTok devotees are rushing to the next closest thing.
Xiaohongshu, known in the U.S. as RedNote, holds the top spot as the most downloaded free application on Apple’s app store. According to Sensor Tower, the platform has seen a 194% weekly jump in downloads and a 200% year-over-year increase.
A person close to the company told Reuters on Wednesday that in a two-day period, RedNote had more than 700,000 new users.
But as former TikTok users post videos on the app that have gone viral with the term “TikTok refugees,” RedNote may be banned under the same law that is hitting TikTok.
“This appears to be the kind of app that the statute would apply to and could face the same restrictions as TikTok if it’s not divested,” a U.S. official told CBS News.
Signed April 2024 by Biden, the “Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act” allows the federal government to restrict use of foreign social media platforms.
The law allows Congress to strip a platform’s foreign ownership within its U.S. operations; it can also be nationally terminated if deemed as a threat. The law is applicable to platforms that allow collaborative content sharing with more than 1 million monthly users, the parent company is located in a foreign country, and the president deems the platform poses a threat to national security.
