ChatGPT Tops Global App Charts, Beats Instagram and TikTok In March
OpenAI's ChatGPT became the most downloaded app globally for March 2025. According to App Figures, the artificial intelligence app has surpassed social media giants like Instagram and TikTok.
This is the largest month for ChatGPT ever and the first time the app has topped the monthly download charts. In March, ChatGPT reached 46 million new downloads, up 28 percent from February, according to new data released by app intelligence company App Figures.
The data revealed that ChatGPT saw 13 million downloads on iOS and 33 million on Android, making a total of 46 million downloads in the month of March.
Instagram also achieved 46 million downloads in March, including 5 million on iOS and 41 million on Android. It was followed by TikTok with 45 million downloads, which witnessed 8 million downloads on iOS and 37 million on Android.
According to MoneyControl, between January and March 2025, the app was downloaded 148 percent more than it was during the same time in 2024.
App Figures founder and CEO Ariel Michaeli said, "It's starting to feel like ChatGPT is becoming a verb, a lot like how Google did in the 2000s, to the point where many don't think 'AI' but rather 'ChatGPT.'"
He added, "So when there's excitement about AI — even about competition like Grok, Manus AI, or DeepSeek — many who are not swimming in this topic come for AI but really download ChatGPT."
The rapid growth of ChatGPT took place after CEO Sam Altman introduced advanced image-generation capabilities. The social media platforms exploded with Studio Ghibli-inspired art.
The craze among people for Japanese anime art was so insane that Mr Altman asked users to stop making so many image requests, as the team needs rest as well.
In a post on X, he wrote, "Can y'll please chill on generating images, this is insane, our team needs sleep."
can yall please chill on generating images this is insane our team needs sleep
— Sam Altman (@sama) March 30, 2025
He also urged users to slow down because it was putting too much pressure on the system.
He said, "It's super fun seeing people love images in chatgpt. But our GPUs are melting. We are going to temporarily introduce some rate limits while we work on making it more efficient. Hopefully won't be long! Chatgpt free tier will get 3 generations per day soon."
it's super fun seeing people love images in chatgpt.
but our GPUs are melting.
we are going to temporarily introduce some rate limits while we work on making it more efficient. hopefully won't be long!
chatgpt free tier will get 3 generations per day soon.
— Sam Altman (@sama) March 27, 2025
OpenAI CEO Brad Lightcap revealed that in just one week since ChatGPT introduced its image generation feature, over 130 million people used it and together created more than 700 million images.
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