In a major milestone, ChatGPT became the most downloaded non-gaming app globally in March, overtaking long-time leaders Instagram and TikTok for the first time.
According to app intelligence firm Appfigures, the AI chatbot app saw a 28% increase in installs from February, hitting 46 million new downloads—making March its biggest month ever.
Instagram slipped to second place, while TikTok came in third. Meta’s other apps, Facebook and WhatsApp, rounded out the fourth and fifth spots, respectively.
The spike in downloads was likely boosted by major upgrades rolled out in March. These included ChatGPT’s first significant image-generation update in over a year, which sparked viral interest as users began creating Studio Ghibli-style images and memes.
OpenAI also enhanced the app’s voice feature and loosened some image content restrictions.
Despite the upgrades, Appfigures CEO Ariel Michaeli suggested that the growth was more about brand dominance than features.
“ChatGPT is becoming to AI what Google became to search,” he said. Even users exploring alternatives like Grok, Manus AI, or DeepSeek often begin with ChatGPT, highlighting its cultural foothold.
This dominance is posing challenges for competitors. For instance, Anthropic’s Claude has struggled to gain traction, while Grok — backed by Elon Musk and promoted on X — shows more promise due to its strong distribution support, not necessarily superior performance.
Meanwhile, TikTok’s growth earlier this year was fueled by concerns over a possible U.S. ban, prompting a surge in downloads.
Although the ban is now on hold as President Trump negotiates with China-based parent company ByteDance, interest has since stabilized.
Instagram, which led app downloads throughout 2024, is still strong in the U.S., especially among teens. A Piper Sandler survey showed 87% of American teens use Instagram monthly, compared to 79% for TikTok and 72% for Snapchat.
Other top performers in March included CapCut, Telegram, Snapchat, Threads, and Temu. Altogether, the top 10 apps amassed 339 million downloads in March, up from 299 million in February.
