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ChatGPT became the world ’s most downloaded app in March , excluding games , top the usual contenders for the No . 1 place , Instagram and TikTok . This is the first time the app has topped the monthly download charts and ChatGPT ’s biggest month ever . According to new data , ChatGPT ’s installs jumped 28 % from February to March to reach 46 million new downloads during March , app news providerAppfiguresrecently reported .
That put the app slightly ahead of Instagram , which fall to the No . 2 stance . TikTok followed at No . 3 .
Perhaps help to drive installs , ChatGPTsaw some notable upgrade in March , include thefirst major climb to its image - coevals capabilitiesin over a twelvemonth . This lead toa viral moment for ChatGPT in late Marchand early April as substance abuser discovered they could generate images and memes in the style of Studio Ghibli , the popular Japanese animation studio behind movies like “ My Neighbor Totoro ” and “ Spirited aside . ”
OpenAI alsoremoved some safeguardsaround subject matter moderation policies for look-alike in March and kick upstairs ChatGPT’sAI voice feature .
Appfigures noted that ChatGPT ’s installs have grown 148 % twelvemonth - over - year when comparing the first quarter of 2021 to Q1 2025 .
However , the firm speculates that new characteristic were n’t the main driver behind this month ’s ontogeny for the popular chatbot .
“ It ’s embark on to feel like ChatGPT is becoming a verb , a lot like how Google did in the 2000s , to the point where many do n’t think ‘ AI ’ but rather ‘ ChatGPT , ’ ” sound out Appfigures founder and CEO Ariel Michaeli . “ So when there ’s excitation about AI — even about competition like Grok , Manus AI , orDeepSeek — many who are not swim in this issue come for AI but really download ChatGPT . ”
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Because of ChatGPT ’s brand identification , it may be operose for other AI chatbots to take off . That ’s partly whyAnthropic ’s Claudehas miserable performance on this front than ChatGPT . It ’s also whyGrokcould do better than other ChatGPT rivals — not of necessity because it ’s better , but because it has someone famous to market it with Elon Musk , and a large platform for distribution with X.
Instagram , meanwhile , had previously held the No . 2 point across both the Apple App Store and Google Play in bothJanuaryandFebruaryof this year , while TikTok remained No . 1 .
To some extent , TikTok ’s download outgrowth earlier this twelvemonth was drive by concern over apotential U.S. forbidding , as consumers hurry to download the app in suit it disappeared from the app stores . Now , that prohibition is on detainment as President Trumpaims to shorten a dealwith China , where TikTok parent ByteDance is free-base , to keep the app useable to U.S. drug user .
Ahead of this , Instagram had regularly been beating out TikTok for the No . 1 position across global app computer memory , having been the No . 1 ( non - game ) app throughout 2024 . Instagram ’s popularity in the U.S. market has been growing , remain a fave among U.S. teens .
For instance , anew survey of U.S. teensby Piper Sandler released this week plant that Instagram is the most - used social app , with 87 % monthly use , compared with 79 % for TikTok and 72 % for Snapchat .
In March , other social apps , including those from Meta , round out the top charts , with Facebook and WhatsApp filling out the top five , and others like CapCut , Telegram , Snapchat , and Meta ’s thread in the top 10 , alongside Temu .
In total , the top 10 apps were download a corporate 339 million times in March , higher thanFebruary’s299 million .
