TikTok users are moving in large numbers to another Chinese app called Xiaohongshu, meaning “little red book” in Mandarin.

Popularly known as RedNote, US mobile downloads of Xiaohongshu almost tripled in the past week (vis-a-vis a week before that), according to San Francisco-based market intelligence firm Sensor Tower.

Within two days, more than 7,00,000 new users have joined Xiaohongshu, Reuters reported.

In a live chat dubbed “TikTok Refugees” on RedNote on Monday, more than 50,000 US and Chinese users joined the conversation. The app has become the number one app on the US App Store.

By June 2019, TikTok had around 200 million users in India. A year later, the Modi government banned the social networking app (alongside several other made-in-China apps) owned by ByteDance for posing a “threat to the sovereignty and integrity of India”.

The app is once again in the eye of a storm, this time in the US where it has around 170 million users, waiting for the US Supreme Court and President-elect Donald Trump to take a call on its future.

Unlike TikTok, RedNote is accessible in India at the moment, though most of the elements in the user interface are in Mandarin and most of the content on the platform comes from Chinese users. Signing up on RedNote can be done using your phone number.

The Telegraph’s attempt to open an account went through easily after we punched in
the OTP.

On logging in, users are given the choice to select genres to receive themed videos on their timelines and like on TikTok (or any short video platform), users can like, comment and share videos. The app appears to focus on user interests rather than the
people they follow, which may not work well with powerful influencers.

Launched in 2013 as a shopping platform, the company behind the app is Xingin Information Technology, founded by Charlwin Mao and Miranda Qu, and is headquartered in Shanghai.

Over the years, Xiaohongshu has enjoyed backing from big names such as
Alibaba Group Holding, Tencent Holdings and Temasek Holdings. “The ones benefiting from traffic from the TikTok ban are still Chinese apps,” GSR Ventures managing director Allen Zhu wrote on WeChat.

A recent report from Bloomberg said there was “a potential option” involving Elon Musk acquiring the US operations of TikTok.