Earlier this month, TikTok launched Whee, an Instagram-like app for sharing photos with friends. Similarly to Instagram, Whee supports photo filters and messaging. According to Appfigures, as of now, Whee has relatively few downloads and hasn’t advertised itself through Apple’s Search Ads.
Whee quietly launched on June 18th in over 70 countries. Without promotion, new apps often go unnoticed. This seems to be happening with Whee. It hasn’t appeared high on Apple’s Top Free Apps chart or in the Top 500 Social apps in most areas. Its downloads are only coming from people randomly finding it.
As of last week, Whee had about 13,000 total downloads on Apple devices and over 10,000 on Android. Most downloads came from countries like Malaysia, Turkey and Indonesia. But even the top country Malaysia only contributed 2,400 downloads. This shows Whee is still little known. appfigures also says TikTok hasn’t used Apple’s Search Ads yet, which could help Whee be found more easily.
Users don’t seem too excited about Whee either based on its ratings. It has an overall rating of 3.6 out of 5 from only 31 reviews on Apple’s app store. Some see Whee as TikTok’s backup plan if its app gets banned in countries like the US. TikTok parent company ByteDance has tried growing other apps before too to replace TikTok if needed.
Only time will tell if Whee catches on more. But for now, without promotion and low downloads, the new photo-sharing app from TikTok isn’t finding much traction with social media users. More advertising may be needed to give Whee a better chance at growing its user base.
