TikTok earlier this month introduced a new social networking app called Whee, an Instagram-like service for taking photos to share with friends. Like Instagram, Whee also supports the use of photo filters and includes messages. However, the company’s plans for Whee are unclear, as the app has relatively few downloads and has yet to be advertised through Apple’s Search Ads, according to new data from app intelligence firm Appfigures.
Without marketing support, new apps remain largely invisible in today’s App Store. That seems to be the case for Whee as well, which quietly launched on June 18 in 71 countries worldwide. Due to the lack of promotion, Whee did not find its way onto the top free apps chart in Apple’s App Store, nor did it immediately become one of the top 500 social networking apps in its supported markets, although this later changed.
Whee is affiliated with TikTok, which is owned by Beijing-based ByteDance, but is published by TikTok, not its parent, according to its App Store listing.
As of Tuesday, Whee had only racked up 13,000 total worldwide downloads on iOS and somewhere north of 10,000 Android downloads, per Google Play data. It’s also clear that it’s not currently being promoted in the US, as its top iOS markets include Malaysia, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Peru, and Indonesia. However, these countries only contribute a small number of downloads.
For example, the No. 1 market, Malaysia, had 2,400 downloads, while Indonesia rounded out the fifth spot with just 800 installations. Due to the small numbers, these are likely downloads from people who stumbled upon Whee while searching the App Store. In smaller markets with fewer apps, Whee made it into the top 500 social apps, though it was never as high as the Top 10 and mostly above 50.
Additionally, Appfigures says ByteDance has yet to try to advertise Whee through Apple’s search ads, which help apps rank high when App Store users search for apps using specific keywords. There has been no activity on Apple Search Ads related to Whee so far, the company found. Additionally, user feedback from those who have found Whee is also quite lukewarm, with the app having an overall rating of 3.6 out of 5 worldwide, across 31 App Store ratings, only 10 of which have reviews.
ByteDance has not commented on its plans for Whee, but the timing of the app’s launch has raised concerns since President Biden officially signed a ban on TikTok in late April after the House passed a revised bill that mandated either a ban or a sale. of TikTok. (TikTok has since sued the US to block the law from going into effect, which will at least delay the ban for some time while the legality is tested in the courts.)
Whee’s arrival could be a Plan B of sorts that allows ByteDance to maintain a social presence in the US even if the TikTok ban is upheld.
This isn’t the first time ByteDance has tried to generate interest in social apps other than TikTok. Earlier in 2023, the company quietly launched another Instagram-like app, Lemon8, in the US and UK, and even paid TikTok influencers to post about the app in order to get their original content featured. These efforts did not immediately bear fruit. By November 2023, the app’s US downloads on iOS had reached just 2.5 million — great numbers for a new startup, but nothing close to the size of TikTok, which it has surpassed one billion monthly active users, including the 170 million in the USA. However, Lemon8 could be a slow development effort. Today, it is the No. 2 Lifestyle app in the US, with nearly 7.7 million iOS installs in that market.
ByteDance also operates another popular video app, CapCut, which is often used to create TikTok videos. And it briefly chatted with a BeReal rival, TikTok Now, though it shut down after less than a year. It is currently testing another Instagram competitor, TikTok Notes.
Whether Whee will follow the same playbook as Lemon8 remains to be seen. But if your favorite TikTok Influencer starts randomly talking about Whee at some point in the future, know that they were probably paid to do so.
