Duolingo Sees Surge in U.S. Users Learning Chinese Amid TikTok Ban and RedNote Migration

The recent ban of TikTok in the United States has sparked an unexpected trend: a surge in U.S. users learning Chinese on Duolingo, the popular language-learning app. This phenomenon can be attributed to the mass migration of over 700 million TikTok users to the Chinese social video platform RedNote (Xiaohongshu), prompting a cultural exchange between U.S. and Chinese users.

According to Duolingo, the app has seen a remarkable 216% growth in new Mandarin learners in the U.S. compared to the same time last year. This spike occurred in mid-January, coinciding with the surge in RedNote's adoption. The company also reports a corresponding increase in people selecting "TikTok" as their source when asked how they found out about Duolingo.

The shift from TikTok to RedNote has not only led to an increase in Mandarin learners on Duolingo but also a growth in the app's install base. App intelligence provider Appfigures reports a 36% increase in Duolingo's app installs across the App Store and Google Play combined in the U.S. as of January 3. This suggests that users may have been exploring different Chinese social apps before the surge to join RedNote later in the month.

The cultural exchange between U.S. and Chinese users on RedNote has led to requests for American users to help Chinese users with their English homework, further emphasizing the growing demand for Mandarin learning among U.S. users. This trend serves as a pulse check on whether U.S. users are concerned about Chinese companies collecting their personal data for nefarious use, one of the key factors that led to TikTok's ban in the first place. As it turns out, many U.S. users are not worried, as this migration shows.

However, because Shanghai-based Xiaohongshu/RedNote is designed for a Chinese audience, the app's default language is Mandarin Chinese. This prompted an increase in U.S. users of the Duolingo language-learning app to take a crash course in Mandarin. Duolingo has capitalized on this trend by promoting its app for learning the Chinese language on TikTok and other social media platforms.

In conclusion, the TikTok ban and the subsequent shift of U.S. users to RedNote have led to a significant increase in demand for Mandarin language learning on Duolingo. This trend has not only resulted in a 216% growth in new Mandarin learners in the U.S. but also a 36% increase in Duolingo's app installs. As U.S. users continue to adopt RedNote and engage with Chinese users, the demand for Mandarin learning is likely to remain strong, benefiting Duolingo's user base and revenue.