The Duolingo logo is visible on the smartphone.
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Duolingo shares rose nearly 7% on Thursday after a big surge in users signing up to learn Mandarin combined with a surge in use of the Chinese social media app RedNoteTikTok rival.
The company confirmed to CNBC that there was a 216% increase in the number of Mandarin learners using the app compared to a year earlier. For context, Spanish, one of the app’s most popular languages, saw a 40% increase over the same period, Duolingo said.
RedNote, or Xiaohongshu as it is known in China, has quickly become the #1 free app on Apple app store, a position it has held for most of this week. Rounding out the top five are TikTok’s Lemon8 app, American social media startup Clapper, OpenAI’s ChatGPT and It’s a target neither.
Last week, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case involving the future of TikTok in the US, and a law that could effectively ban a popular app. The judges appear to be in favor of upholding the law, and a decision could come as early as Friday. It’s TikTok allegedly in preparation for the US shutdown on Sunday.
RedNote has been the biggest beneficiary of the US user exodus so far, with its US app downloads growing 20-fold over the past week, according to market research firm Sensor Tower. A Duolingo spokesperson told CNBC that the company’s marketing team is “thinking ahead and already has an active presence on Red, managed by our team in China.”
Duolingo offers online and mobile courses in 42 languages. According to his websiteDuolingo has 48.8 million Spanish language learners. French is the second most popular language on the app with 27.3 million users, while Chinese is eighth with 10.7 million.
Duolingo shares have risen 43% in the past year, outpacing the Nasdaq’s 29% gain.
