AI Enters the Browser Wars

When it comes to browsers on your iPhone most use Safari and those who don't generally use Chrome - the most downloaded mobile browser from the App Store.

Entering the fray, Arc Search differentiates itself by leveraging AI, a feature neither Safari nor Chrome offer.

Arc Search is a smarter browser that uses AI to turn search results into what feels like a ChatGPT answer while sprinkling other little conveniences that aim to improve the entire experience.

Has The Browser Company succeeded in building a better mousetrap?

Arc Search has been out for a few weeks now so let's have a look at the downloads.

Since launching in late January, Arc Search was downloaded 401K times from the App Store, according to our estimates.

Downloads started high - 41K on launch day, dropped a bunch, spiked again about a week later to 48K, and then dropped to around 10K a day, according to our estimates.

The US contributed a big chunk of the downloads - roughly 31% overall. Saudi Arabia was a distant second with 5.9%. Germany, India, and Egypt round out the top 5 countries with 5.5%, 4.7%, and 3.8% share respectively.

That's a diverse top that isn't exactly common these days. It's interesting to see where AI is being picked up the most.

Back to the main question - Has Arc taken over Google Chrome? Not really.

Not Google, But...

While Arc Search was collecting its 401K downloads, Google Chrome saw 5.6M new downloads. And these two figures are only for the App Store because Arc Search isn't available on Google Play.

But there's some good news. While taking on Google is nearly impossible right now, there are other browsers in the App Store. When you compare Arc's downloads to Firefox (434K) and Microsoft Edge (1.3M) things look more promising.

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