GPT-4o Leads ChatGPT to Biggest Spike in App Revenue Ever!
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Earlier this week, OpenAI introduced GPT-4o, its latest update to roll out of the lab. Many have called GPT-4o magical with its ability to understand different inputs very fast.
OpenAI also did something interesting - they said GPT-4o will be available on their free tier. I didn't expect that at all, and planned to do a much different analysis than the one you're reading because I expected revenue growth to stall.
tl;dr - OpenAI didn't make GPT-4o free in the app and revenue exploded.
This week, ChatGPT's mobile app has seen the biggest spike in revenue and also the most revenue in a single day ever. That's not an easy milestone, considering ChatGPT's steady revenue growth since it was rolled out exactly a year ago.
Downloads, which weren't growing as much after OpenAI turned subscriptions off and then on last (December), but even downloads saw the biggest spike ever!
According to our App Intelligence, ChatGPT's mobile revenue rose 22% on the day of GPT-4o's announcement, already the most revenue the app has seen in a single day since launch. But it didn't stop there.
By Tuesday, revenue rose, again, to nearly twice as the daily average in May. In more absolute terms, we estimate that ChatGPT's net revenue rose from a daily average of $491K to neaely $900K. And that's net, which means what OpenAI gets to keep after giving Apple and Google their share.
And this isn't a one-off peak! Our estimates show the trend is sustaining and even increasing.
Between Monday and Friday, ChatGPT earned a total of $4.2M of net revenue from the App Store and Google Play (but mostly from the App Store), according to our estimates.
I wonder if OpenAI makes more money from its app than from its website and that's why GPT-4o is only free there. Any guesses?
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All figures included in this report are estimated. Unless specified otherwise, estimated revenue is always net, meaning it's the amount the developer earned after Apple and Google took their fee.
