April just ended and I dove into the data and ranked the most downloaded apps to see if the shift we observed in March carried into April.
Yes, yes it did.
ChatGPT was the most downloaded app in the world in April. This is the second month the AI king has been in the lead after dethroning Instagram last month.
According to Appfigures Intelligence, ChatGPT made its way into 52M iOS and Android devices. That's 12% more downloads than March and a whopping 38% more than January. It seems that more competition means more downloads.
And that's not all. For the first time, ChatGPT was the most downloaded app in the App Store and on Google Play. What a wild ride for OpenAI.
TikTok came in second with 39M estimated downloads followed by Instagram with a smidge less. I think the pair will take a back seat to ChatGPT for the foreseeable future.
Facebook and WhatsApp round out the top five for April with 31M and 27M estimated downloads, respectively.
Yes, Meta is still in command of mobile having three of the top five most downloaded apps in the world, and Threads a few spots below.
Temu snagged 6th place in April with 25M estimated downloads even though it turned off user acquisition in the US as a response to tariffs. With downloads at the lowest they've ever been as of the end of April I don't expect to see Temu ranking next month.
But here's the thing. According to our estimates, the top 10 most downloaded apps in the world saw a combined total of 300M downloads in April. That's a 13% decrease from March's total, which we see coming out of most apps' total with a few exceptions.
Developers really have to work for downloads these days, but those that do win.
The same seven apps held the same seven download spots. Revenue told a different story, and a short-drama app from Singapore crashed the top 10.
MLB app downloads jumped 43% this February while revenue climbed to $3.5M, signaling a stronger season ahead for baseball on mobile.