DeepSeek displaces ChatGPT as the App Store’s top app

The mobile app for DeepSeek, a Chinese AI lab, skyrocketed to the No. 1 spot in app stores around the globe this weekend, topping the U.S.-based AI chatbot, ChatGPT. On iOS, DeepSeek is currently the No. 1 free app in the U.S. App Store and 51 other countries, according to mobile app analytics firm Appfigures.

The rapid rise of DeepSeek in the app stores’ Top Charts follows its meteoric rise in popularity this week resulting from the release of a series of open AI models that are competitive with leading offerings from OpenAI and Google. However, compared to other frontier AI models, DeepSeek claims its models were trained for just a fraction of the price with significantly worse AI chips. This represents new efficiency gains for AI model training, which sent Nvidia’s stock price tumbling down as much as 17% on Monday and has put the rest of the tech industry on high alert.

On Friday, DeepSeek’s mobile app had just a million downloads across both the App Store and Google Play. That number has since doubled as of Monday morning, to 2.6 million downloads of DeepSeek’s mobile app across both platforms.

The app currently sits in the Top 10 list for free apps in 111 countries on the App Store and in 18 countries on Google Play, according to Appfigures.

In addition, more than 80% of DeepSeek’s total mobile app downloads have come in the past seven days, according to analytics firm Sensor Tower. In that time frame, DeepSeek saw nearly 300% more app downloads than Perplexity, another leading consumer AI app.

DeepSeek moved into its No. 1 spot on the U.S. App Store on Sunday, January 26, up from No. 31 just a couple days prior. Meanwhile, DeepSeek is the No. 14 Overall free app on Google Play, rapidly climbing up from No. 133 on January 24.

As a result, daily active users jumped both globally and in the U.S. by over 110% from January 24 to 25 compared with the same period last week.

While China is the largest mobile app market for DeepSeek today, it represents only 23% of its total downloads, according to Sensor Tower. The app’s second and third largest markets are the United States, which makes up 15% of its total downloads, and Egypt, which makes up 6% of its total downloads.

The popularity of DeepSeek’s mobile app raises questions about the moat of popular consumer AI apps, such as ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity. While hundreds of millions of people use ChatGPT and Gemini every month, DeepSeek proves that the consumer AI space is still volatile, and new competitors shouldn’t be counted out.

However, it’s worth noting that reaching the No. 1 position on the App Store isn’t just calculated by app downloads alone.

Apple’s algorithm, though secretive, is a combination of numerous factors, including velocity of the installs and more. That allows apps that gain installs quickly to skyrocket to the top of the charts, overtaking others that may have a larger total number of users or installs. It will be more telling to see how long DeepSeek holds its top position over time.

The tech industry is still coming to terms with the techniques DeepSeek used to train its AI models, and what it means for the broader AI space. In light of DeepSeek’s R1 model, leading AI model providers may be feeling pressured to release better models to prove their dominance, or justify the hefty price they’re paying for compute. Meta has reportedly created several “war rooms” to analyze DeepSeek’s training methods.

DeepSeek’s rise in popularity was potentially stifled by “large-scale malicious” attacks, the company reported on Monday, which forced it to limit customers outside of China from registering for the app.

Additional reporting by Sarah Perez.

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