Powered by TikTok Videos, China's Answer to Tariffs is Cutting the Middleman

Earlier this week, two shopping apps I haven't seen before jumped to the top of the charts and have kept their top spots.

DHgate and Taobao, two Chinese shopping apps, went on TikTok over the weekend to tell the world that the expensive branded goods most think come from Europe are really made in China, and that anyone can buy the unbranded (maybe knockoff) versions right from them and save a lot of money in the process.

And those videos went viral!

We estimate that between Sunday and Tuesday, Taobao saw 756K new downloads and DHgate saw a whopping 1M new downloads from the App Store and Google Play globally.

For Taobao, that's an increase of roughly 150% as it was already averaging around 100K downloads per day, according to our App Intelligence. For DHgate, the one that started it all, things are a bit different.

DHgate's downloads rose a ridiculous 1,583% since the video went viral, catapulting it from around 20K downloads per day to more than 540K downloads on Tuesday. That's the most downloads DHgate saw in a single day ever.

It's worth noting that in both cases, downloads from the App Store and Google were fairly balanced.

TikTok's ability to send apps to the top of the charts is still strong!

What I find interesting is that Taobao isn't even in English, making it less likely to actually be used by the hundreds of thousands who downloaded it this week. This feels a lot like the short-lived popularity of Rednote back in January, when TikTok was banned.

I'm sure there's a political angle to all of this, which isn't for this newsletter but instead is a good reminder to be ready when the opportunity for your app comes along.