Instagram Edits, Meta’s newly released video creation app, had a bigger debut than its direct competitor, ByteDance’s CapCut, once did. The new app, which helps users craft videos for Instagram Reels, stories, and other social posts, was downloaded an estimated 702,900 times on iOS devices during its first two days on the market. That’s around 37 times more downloads on iOS than CapCut saw in its first two days of availability, according to data from app intelligence provider Appfigures.
As of Thursday, Edits had grown to 1.2 million iOS downloads and 5.9 million downloads on Android, for a total of 7.1 million. By comparison, CapCut was downloaded only 83,500 times in its first three days on iOS and Android. To be fair, CapCut was only available in half the global markets at launch, but even if its numbers were doubled or tripled, Edits would be far ahead.
Strong U.S. Launch
In the U.S. alone, Edits was downloaded 381,000 times in the first three days, while CapCut had been downloaded just 3,400 times during its U.S. debut. In this more direct comparison, Edits’ U.S. launch was 112 times the size of CapCut’s.
Edits’ fast adoption also led to the app achieving a high ranking during its debut, Appfigures found, which could help boost its downloads further and increase competition. These numbers are also a demonstration of how powerful Meta’s network effects are when it comes to launching new apps that benefit from its wider social networking ecosystem.
The new Instagram companion app hit No. 1 on the U.S. iPhone App Store’s charts, including the Top Overall apps and Top Apps (minus games) on its first day, April 22. By day two, it dropped to No. 2 on both charts, then remained there, before falling to No. 3 by Friday.
Because the App Store tracks top apps by number of downloads and velocity of new installs, that’s left Edits currently ranking higher than CapCut, which was No. 14 Overall and No. 10 among top non-game apps on the U.S. App Store after its first three days on the market.
CapCut’s Dominance in the Long Run
However, Edits still has a long way to go to catch up with CapCut’s overall user base. The ByteDance-owned app, popular with TikTok creators, launched in April 2020 and has since been downloaded on iOS and Android 1.22 billion times worldwide, excluding China.
So far, Edits has received a mixed reaction from creators, reports social media marketing consultant, Lia Haberman, in her recent newsletter. Many praised the app’s ease of use, built-in analytics, ad-free nature, support for 4K video, and watermark-free exports. Critics pointed out that Edits still lacked features provided by CapCut, including things like templates and a plethora of transition effects.
In time, Edits could still catch up to CapCut, but it could also then choose to add a paid tier as a means of monetization or introduce ads.
Author’s Opinion
Instagram Edits has already made a strong start, but it still faces challenges in providing the depth of features that CapCut has built over time. If Meta continues to evolve the app by adding more features and creating a more user-friendly experience for creators, there’s no reason why it couldn’t eventually catch up to, or even surpass, CapCut in the long run.
Featured image credit: Forbes Middle East
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