Chatgpt has become the most downloaded app in the world in March, excluding games, on top of the usual contenders for the number 1, Instagram and Tiktok. This is the first time that the app is at the top of the monthly download charts and the biggest month of chatgpt ever. According to the new data, chatgpt installations increased by 28% from February to March to reach 46 million new downloads in March, recently reported the Appfigures Intelligence AppFigures provider.
This put the app slightly in front of Instagram, which fell in position no. 2. Tiktok followed n. 3.
Perhaps helping to guide the installations, Chatgpt saw some remarkable updates in March, including the first important update to its generation of images in over a year. This led to a viral moment for Chatgpt in late March and early April when users found that they could generate images and meme in the style of the Ghibli studio, the famous Japanese animation study behind films such as “My Neighbor Totoro” and “Spiritted Away”.
Openii also removed some guarantees on the policies of moderation of content for images in March and has updated the vocal function of AI of Chatgpt.
Appfigures observed that the chatgpt installations grew by 148% on an annual basis when they compared the first quarter of 2021 with the first quarter of 2025.
However, the company hypothesizes that the new features were not the main pilot behind the growth of this month for the popular chatbot.
“It is starting to seem that Chatgpt is becoming a verb, very similar to the way Google did in the 2000s, at the point where many do not think” to the “but rather” chatgpt “, said Ariel Michaeli, founder and CEO of Appfigures.” So when there is excitement for the IA – even on the competition like Grok, Manus Ai or Deepseek – topic come for the IA but really download chatgpt. “
Due to the recognition of the chatgpt brand, it could be more difficult for other chatbots of to take off. This is partly the reason why Claude di Anthropic has scarce performances on this chatgpt front. It is also the reason why Grok could do better than the other chatgpt rivals, not necessarily because it is better, but because he has someone famous to market it with Elon Musk and a large platform for distribution with X.
In the meantime, Instagram had previously kept first place both in the Apple App Store and on Google Play both in January and in February of this year, while Tiktok remained in the first place.
To a certain extent, the growth of Tiktok’s download at the beginning of this year was guided by concerns for a potential American ban, since consumers rushed to download the app in the event that it disappeared from the App Stores. Now, that ban is suspended since President Trump aims to cut an agreement with China, where the bytedance of Tiktok’s parents is based, to maintain the app available for US users.
Before this, Instagram had regularly beat Tiktok for position no. 1 through the global app stores, having been app no. 1 (not game) in 2024. Instagram popularity in the US market grew, remaining a favorite among US teenagers.
For example, a new survey on US Sandler’s US teenagers published this week found that Instagram is the most used social app, with a monthly use of 87%, compared to 79% for Tiktok and 72% for Snapchat.
In March, other social apps, including those of Meta, completed the best graphic designers, with Facebook and WhatsApp who compiled the first five, and others such as Capcut, Telegram, Snapchat and Meta’s Fili in the Top 10, together with Temu.
In total, the first 10 apps have been downloaded a collective of 339 million times in March, more than 299 million February.
