RedNote: the rise of the new TikTok

RedNote, a Chinese rival to social-media app TikTok, has seen millions of US users flock to it in the wake of the US TikTok ban. That caught the company by surprise. What is RedNote and can its popularity last?

Rednote app being installed on a mobile phone.
RedNote has been a leading beneficiary of the US TikTok ban
(Image credit: Thomas Fuller/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

Even before China’s DeepSeek rocked the foundations of the American AI establishment, another Chinese app was racing up the popularity rankings. Shanghai-based RedNote – a social-media, lifestyle and e-commerce app, renowned for its stylish if fluffy content – has been a leading beneficiary of the US TikTok ban, welcoming half a million US “refugees” in recent weeks, notes the Financial Times.

There are plenty of heartwarming stories about American and Chinese users enjoying “a unique exchange” at a time of “deteriorating geopolitical ties”, but online conspiracy theorists are also out in force, claiming that RedNote is a dangerous propaganda tool.

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RedNote's moment in the sun

RedNote’s parent company, Xingyin Information Technology, has never lacked backers, says The New York Times. As of last July, Crunchbase estimated it raised nearly $1 billion from backers including GVC Capital, HongShan, Alibaba and Tencent – the latter two arch-rivals reportedly both invested to prevent the other from acquiring the start-up. These days its value is put at around $17 billion, says Fast Company, and it’s considered a likely IPO candidate. The recent influx of TikTok users appeared to catch the company by surprise, says Reuters. Mao and co are reportedly “scrambling to find ways to moderate English-language content and build English-Chinese translation tools”.

There’s a “fiesta feel” to the online community right now and something “beautifully subversive” about seeing Americans on the site, says The Spectator. Jumping into another Chinese app because you disagree with your government’s ban of another is “a commendable F-you”. Sadly, the anarchy is unlikely to last given tense US-China relations. “RedNote’s high moment” of popularity “may be brief”.


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Jane writes profiles for MoneyWeek and is city editor of The Week. A former British Society of Magazine Editors editor of the year, she cut her teeth in journalism editing The Daily Telegraph’s Letters page and writing gossip for the London Evening Standard – while contributing to a kaleidoscopic range of business magazines including Personnel Today, Edge, Microscope, Computing, PC Business World, and Business & Finance.

She has edited corporate publications for accountants BDO, business psychologists YSC Consulting, and the law firm Stephenson Harwood – also enjoying a stint as a researcher for the due diligence department of a global risk advisory firm.

Her sole book to date, Stay or Go? (2016), rehearsed the arguments on both sides of the EU referendum.

She lives in north London, has a degree in modern history from Trinity College, Oxford, and is currently learning to play the drums.