ChatGPT topped the global download charts for the first time in March 2025, beating out giants like Instagram
and TikTok. According to analytics company Appfigures, ChatGPT installs grew by 28% compared to February, reaching nearly 46 million downloads in a month. Since the app’s launch, March has been OpenAI’s best month yet.
Image source: Rolf van Root / Unsplash
Instagram, which held the lead in January and February, fell to second place, while TikTok took third place in the App Store and Google Play, TechCrunch reports. At the same time, the growth in popularity of ChatGPT is associated with important updates. In particular, for the first time in more than a year, image generation functions were improved, which allowed users to create viral pictures and memes in the style of the animation studio Studio Ghibli, which quickly spread across social networks in late March and early April.
OpenAI also loosened its visual content moderation policy and updated the app’s voice mode. However, analysts believe that it’s not just the new features that have contributed to the surge in popularity.
«”It feels like ChatGPT is becoming a verb, like Google did in the 2000s. A lot of people are no longer talking about AI, they’re just talking about ChatGPT,” said Ariel Michaeli, founder and CEO of Appfigures. He said the AI wave is also being fueled by competitors like Grok and DeepSeek, but people are still downloading ChatGPT.
Unfortunately, ChatGPT’s popularity also makes it difficult for other chatbots to grow. For example, Anthropic’s Claude can’t come close to achieving the same results. Grok, on the other hand, has a slightly better chance, but that’s largely due to the figure of Elon Musk himself and his X platform, which is actively promoting the product.
Image source: Appfigures
The global rankings in March also included Facebook, WhatsApp, Telegram, Snapchat and Threads. The top 10 apps were downloaded 339 million times, 40 million more than in February.