Instagram Edits reached over 7 million downloads in its first week, surpassing the launch of CapCut

Meta’s newly launched app, Instagram Edits, experienced a highly successful debut, achieving over 7.1 million downloads within its first week. The app, designed to assist users in crafting videos for Instagram reels and stories, significantly outperformed its competitor, ByteDance’s CapCut. In its initial two days, Instagram Edits was downloaded approximately 702,900 times on iOS devices alone. According to Appfigures, this represents about 37 times more downloads on iOS than CapCut achieved at its own launch.

Instagram Edits continued to see rapid adoption, with total downloads reaching 1.2 million for iOS and 5.9 million for Android by the end of the first week. In comparison, CapCut's first-week download numbers were more modest, due in part to its limited market availability during its launch period. However, even when accounting for this factor, Instagram Edits still managed to greatly surpass the figures achieved by CapCut.

The app's launch in the U.S. was particularly successful, with 381,000 downloads occurring within the first three days. This starkly contrasts with CapCut's U.S. debut, which saw only 3,400 downloads within the same timeframe, marking Edits’ U.S. launch as being 112 times larger in scale. Such quick adoption helped the app rank highly in the app store charts, reaching No. 1 on the U.S. iPhone App Store’s charts on its first day of release.

Despite this strong initial performance, Instagram Edits still faces challenges in catching up to CapCut's user base, which has garnered 1.22 billion global downloads since its 2020 launch. While the app benefits from Meta’s powerful network effects, the long-term success of Instagram Edits remains uncertain. Creators have provided mixed reactions to the app, praising its ease of use, but criticizing the absence of certain features available in CapCut, such as templates and transition effects.

Moving forward, Instagram Edits could choose to introduce a monetization strategy, perhaps by offering a paid tier or incorporating ads. Lia Haberman, a social media marketing consultant, notes the need for the app to evolve in order to maintain its competitive edge in the market. The app’s early success showcases Meta's strong ability to leverage its ecosystem to bolster new ventures quickly, but whether Instagram Edits can maintain its momentum remains to be seen.

Sources: techcrunch.com, appfigures.com, liahaberman.substack.com