How's your bracket looking? March Madness tipped off this week, pushing a trio of apps to the top of the App Store.
As of right now, ESPN Tournament Challenge, NCAA, and CBS Sports are the most downloaded apps in the US App Store. Not exactly the same on Google Play, but they're somewhere in the top 100.
Downloads of the three jumped sharply on Monday, with daily downloads growing more than 2,300% to 271K on Tuesday.
Our estimates show that between Monday and Tuesday, ESPN Tournament Challenge, which isn't ESPN's main app, saw more than 280K new downloads. CBS Sports brought in 135K downloads, and the official NCAA app saw 77K new downloads.
That's almost a half million new downloads, in case you're counting.
Looking back at last year's madness, it's ESPN that's winning this run with roughly twice as many downloads as it added in the opening week in 2021. CBS is netting a similar number as last year, but the official app is way behind, at a little under a half. There's still time, though.
December saw a curious split: downloads dropped 2% while revenue sat at $1.3B. ChatGPT and TikTok dominated both charts as the mobile industry enters a new maturity phase.
Wall Street bet $2 billion on Polymarket, and downloads surged 1,172% in December. The prediction market banned in 2022 is now where Wall Street looks for signals.