Pulse News

**Instagram May Launch Reels as Separate App, Increasing Pressure on TikTok**

By Kalley Huang and Kaya Yurieff

Feb 26, 2025, 2:07pm PST

Instagram is considering launching a stand-alone app for its short-form video feature, Reels, Instagram chief Adam Mosseri told staff this week, according to a person who heard the remarks. Such an app would be similar to the TikTok experience of scrolling through videos and would be Instagram's most aggressive move so far to take advantage of its Chinese-owned rival's uncertain position in the U.S.

Instagram's efforts to take on TikTok are part of an initiative code-named Project Ray, which includes improving recommendations for new users and people in the U.S. as well as distributing more three-minute-long videos, according to the person. The strategies also highlight Meta Platforms' focus on videos, which has encouraged users to spend more time on the app, a boon to advertisers. Instagram did not provide a comment.

**The Takeaway**

- Instagram is considering a stand-alone app for Reels

- Efforts code-named Project Ray target TikTok users, creators

- Launches of stand-alone apps can accelerate growth

Mosseri and other Meta leaders have been hunting for ways to attract more of the young users and creators that have made TikTok a hit. In January, around the time a U.S. law banning TikTok was slated to go into effect, Instagram started offering creators tens of thousands of dollars per month to post only on Reels. Instagram also announced a new video-editing app, Edits, to take on CapCut, owned by TikTok's parent company, ByteDance.

Meta doesn't break out its Instagram performance, but eMarketer estimates U.S. ad sales on the app rose 24% last year and make up nearly half of all Meta's U.S. ad sales. Speaking to analysts last month, Chief Financial Officer Susan Li highlighted the growth in how much time users spend globally watching video on Instagram.

TikTok, which went offline for about 12 hours in January, is still in limbo. President Donald Trump has extended the deadline until early April for the app's U.S. operations to separate from ByteDance and has assigned Vice President J.D. Vance to negotiate an arrangement that could keep TikTok legally operating in the U.S. But there's no guarantee that ByteDance or the Chinese government, which will have to bless any deal, will agree to the Trump administration's proposal.

Currently, users of Instagram and sibling app Facebook flip between Reels and other features, including photo posts and disappearing Stories. A stand-alone Reels app, besides aping TikTok more closely, could also help with the growth of Reels use. Three months after Facebook spun off messaging app Messenger in August 2014, it reached 500 million users, up from 200 million in April that year.

More recently, Meta launched text-first Threads in July 2023 after Elon Musk's purchase of Twitter prompted some users and advertisers to quit the app. Threads, which recently launched ads, has more than 300 million monthly active users, Meta said in January.

A stand-alone Reels app could also potentially enable Instagram to add more Reels-specific features, such as incorporating editing tools from the new Edits app. Instagram has benefited from TikTok's troubles in the past. Mosseri, in talking to staff recently, highlighted Instagram's performance in India, which banned TikTok in 2020 after a border row with neighboring China. Though several homegrown rivals gained in popularity, Instagram and YouTube were the biggest winners after TikTok's exit. Mosseri told staff one in four Instagram users is in India, while one of every three minutes spent on the app takes place in India.

Reels got its start during the first wave of U.S. government attempts to ban TikTok. As TikTok first rose in popularity, Facebook launched a stand-alone video app called Lasso in November 2018. It shut that app down in July 2020. In August of that year, as TikTok faced threats of a ban in the U.S. during Trump's first term, Instagram rolled out Reels to 50 countries, including the U.S.