CapCut, a free mobile video editor, has already gained a lot of users and continues to attract new ones. This popularity, along with CapCut's accessibility, threatens the products of larger companies such as Adobe and Canva. This was reported by Bloomberg.
CapCut is owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, which also owns the social network TikTok. The two programs work in synergy, as the mobile video editor allows you to quickly and easily create short videos that are later published on the social network.
ByteDance released its editor outside of China in 2020, and it has since gained more than 300 million monthly active users on mobile devices. In total, CapCut is responsible for 81% of the entire active mobile video editor user base, according to Sensor Tower.
This dominance of the mobile editor market puts pressure on Adobe, which has more professional tools whose functionality is not always clear or even necessary for ordinary users. Easy to learn and friendly to new users, mobile editors are actively luring away audience, in particular from the mobile Adobe Premier Rush, which is not very popular.
Among other things, there are tools like OpenAI's Sora that make it even easier for users to create videos using generative artificial intelligence. To combat such challenges, Adobe is working on a web browser version of Adobe Premier with simpler functionality and a set of AI-based tools.
Canva, one of the world's most valuable startups, also faces new challenges due to the popularity of ByteDance's mobile editor. Canva's attempts to create a one-size-fits-all media editor may fail because mobile users have already found CapCut to be simple and familiar.
However, the popularity of CapCut is not only a concern for competitors. Among other things, the mobile editor may be banned in the United States, similar to TikTok. The law on blocking TikTok was also written with the mobile editor in mind. Although the team working on the editor is separate from the social network's team, they still share office space in Los Angeles.
Although the ByteDance mobile editor may also face a potential ban in the United States, this does not mean that such actions will help Adobe or Canva develop their mobile products.