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ChatGPT emerged as the world’s most downloaded app in March 2025. This excludes games that have topped the usual contenders for the No. 1 spot, Instagram and TikTok. This is the first time the ChatGPT app download surge is taking place in the app, the monthly download charts, and ChatGPT’s biggest month ever.
According to new data, ChatGPT’s installation jumped 28% from February to March. App intelligence provider Appfigures reported that the download reached 46 million new downloads in March.
This development places the app slightly ahead of Instagram, which fell to the No. 2 position. TikTok followed at No. 3.
Perhaps helping to drive installs, ChatGPT saw some notable upgrades in March. This includes the first significant upgrade to its image-generation capabilities in over a year. This led to a viral moment for the ChatGPT app download surge in late March and early April. This is because users discovered they could generate images and memes in the style of Studio Ghibli. Ghibli was the popular Japanese animation studio behind movies like “My Neighbor Totoro” and “Spirited Away”.
Users also speculate that the ChatGPT app download surge could be tied to ChatGPT’s marked growth in India.
In March, OpenAI also removed some safeguards around content moderation policies for images and upgraded ChatGPT’s AI voice feature.
Appfigures noted that the ChatGPT app download surge grew 148% year-over-year when comparing the first quarter of 2021 to Q1 2025.
However, the firm speculates that new features weren’t the main driver behind this month’s growth for the popular chatbot.
Appfigures founder and CEO Ariel Michaeli said it’s starting to feel like ChatGPT is becoming a verb. He added that it is a lot like how Google did in the 2000s. He also pointed out that many don’t think of ‘AI’ but rather ‘ChatGPT.
Moving forward, he said, 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.”
Because of ChatGPT’s brand recognition, it may be harder for other AI chatbots to take off. That’s partly why Anthropic’s Claude has poorer performance on this front than ChatGPT. It’s also why Grok could do better than other ChatGPT rivals. Meanwhile, this is not necessarily because it’s better. This is 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 spot across the Apple App Store and Google Play when the ChatGPT app download surge was absent. This happened in January and February of this year, while TikTok remained No. 1.
To some extent, TikTok’s download growth earlier this year was driven by concerns over a potential U.S. ban. This is because consumers rushed to download the app in case it disappeared from the app stores. Now, that ban is on hold as President Trump aims to cut a deal with China. The agreement is where TikTok parent ByteDance is based, to keep the app available to U.S. users.
Ahead of this, Instagram had regularly been beating out TikTok for the No. 1 position across global app stores. This owes to having been the No. 1 (non-game) app throughout 2024. Instagram’s popularity in the U.S. market has been growing, remaining a favorite among U.S. teens.
For instance, a new survey of U.S. teens by Piper Sandler released this week found that Instagram is the most-used social app. It has 87% monthly usage, compared with 79% for TikTok and 72% for Snapchat.
In March, other social apps, including those from Meta, rounded out the top charts. Facebook and WhatsApp filled out the top five. Others, like CapCut, Telegram, Snapchat, and Meta’s Threads, are in the top 10, alongside Temu.
In total, alongside the ChatGPT app download surge, users downloaded the top 10 apps a collective 339 million times in March, higher than February’s 299 million.