It seems like everyone was trying to learn a language in 2023, and there's one app at the center of that - Duolingo!
Duolingo had a magnificent year in terms of both downloads and revenue, reaching new all-time highs for both.
Let's have a look at the numbers.
According to our App intelligence, Duolingo's net revenue in 2023 rose to $339M. Net means what's left after Apple and Google take their fees.
That's a 57% increase when compared to last year's revenue and a whopping 2,725% increase when compared to 2018!
There are no surprises when we look at where the revenue is coming from - 70% came from the App Store and 30% from Google Play, which is very common for revenue. And the biggest country, by far, is the US with 51% of the revenue in 2023.
According to our estimates, the UK, Germany, Canada, and Japan round out the top 5 countries. Each with a single-digit share of the revenue. No other country has a double-digit share.
And it's not just the revenue.
Duolingo saw 134M new downloads in 2023 from the App Store and Google Play, according to our estimates. That's 30% higher than 2022's haul and 179% higher than 2018's. Not nearly as high as revenue but very healthy for an established leader.
Looking at revenue in the context of downloads one thing is clear, in addition to growing downloads, Duolingo's big achievement is how well it's able to turn downloads into revenue and how to turn revenue into more revenue.
Part of that growth is a new tier Duolingo that brings AI (with ChatGPT) to language learning called Max. It also happens to be Duolingo's most expensive plan.
I expect to see even more growth in 2024. Or, in the most studied laguage on Duolingo (after English), ¡Vamos!
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