AI Took Three of the Top Ten App Download Spots in April

I crunched the numbers and ranked the most downloaded and highest earning apps across the App Store and Google Play worldwide in April. Compared with March, the top of the chart looked familiar again, but the bottom finally did something useful.

AI expanded its footprint.

ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude all made the combined downloads top 10 in April. That's not a tiny category signal anymore. That's three AI assistants sitting in the same leaderboard as TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp, CapCut, and Snapchat.

April was also a smaller month overall. Together, the 10 most downloaded apps got 307M downloads, according to Appfigures Intelligence, down 6% from March's 327M. The order at the very top didn't change. What changed was who made it into the room.

AI Took More Seats

The combined chart was stable until it was not.

ChatGPT was the most downloaded app in the world again with 53M estimated downloads in April, down from 55M in March. That's not enough to threaten its lead.

TikTok held #2 with 42M estimated downloads, according to our estimates. For an app that has had no shortage of political noise, TikTok's download chart continues to be annoyingly calm. I mean that as a compliment.

Instagram stayed at #3 with 39M estimated downloads. Meta's photo-and-video machine is not exciting in this chart, but it is still very hard to move.

Facebook and Gemini round out the top five with 33M and 32M estimated downloads, respectively. Gemini's rank didn't change, but its presence in the top five is getting harder to treat as temporary. Google has distribution most apps can only dream of, and Gemini is using it.

WhatsApp, CapCut, and Snapchat held #6 through #8. The movement came below them. Claude entered the combined top 10 at #9 with 20M estimated downloads, and NetShort entered at #10 with 19M.

That pushed Telegram and Temu out of the combined downloads chart.

Claude's move is the one that changes the read on the month. In March, AI already owned the App Store side of the story: Gemini was #1, ChatGPT was #2, and Claude was #4. In April, the App Store got even tighter. ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude were the top three apps on the App Store, with 15.5M, 15.4M, and 10.9M estimated downloads.

Google Play still gives ChatGPT the combined lead, but the App Store chart now looks like an AI shelf.

April changed the shape of that story. Last month, AI was strong inside the App Store chart but the combined chart still looked mostly like the usual internet giants. In April, Claude made the worldwide top 10 too. The category did not just get attention on one store. It took another combined spot.

TikTok and ChatGPT Are Way Ahead

The revenue chart was less about rotation and more about distance.

Revenue dipped in April, but the top stayed locked.

TikTok was the highest earning app in the world with $303M in estimated net revenue, what TikTok keeps after Apple and Google take their cut. That's down from March's massive $359M haul, but still comfortably ahead of every other app.

ChatGPT stayed at #2 with $211M in estimated net revenue. That's also lower than March, but it kept ChatGPT in a league very few apps can reach. Downloads make ChatGPT look dominant. Revenue makes it look durable.

YouTube held #3 with $156M in estimated net revenue, according to our estimates. That's a drop from March too, but the gap between YouTube and the next tier remained wide.

CapCut stayed at #4 with $109M in estimated net revenue. TikTok and CapCut together gave ByteDance $412M in net revenue from the top 10 in April, which is a ridiculous sentence to write and an even more ridiculous business to run.

Tinder climbed to #5 with $89M in estimated net revenue, barely ahead of Disney+ at $89M. Google One, HBO Max, and Snapchat followed, which kept the middle of the chart in familiar subscription territory.

Tencent Video entered the combined revenue chart at #10 with $70M in estimated net revenue, replacing Crunchyroll. It also hit #5 on the App Store revenue chart, which is a good reminder that China-heavy entertainment apps can still break into the global revenue leaderboard even when they barely register on downloads.

Together, the 10 highest earning apps brought in $1.3B in estimated net revenue in April, down 17% from March's $1.5B. TikTok, ChatGPT, and YouTube alone were down by a combined $145M, which explains most of the drop without changing the shape of the chart.

Short Dramas Didn't Go Away

NetShort entering the downloads chart is the other useful April signal.

Short drama apps have been fighting for global attention for a while, and April put another one in the combined top 10. NetShort got 19M estimated downloads in April, landing at #10 worldwide.

That came right after FreeReels made the combined top 10 in February, and it makes the category look less like a one-app spike and more like a format with repeatable demand. Different names can rotate through the chart, but the behavior is the same: vertical, serialized, emotional video designed for mobile-first consumption.

NetShort's Google Play presence did most of the work. It was #8 on Google Play with 16M estimated downloads, according to our estimates, while the combined chart put it just behind Claude.

AI is moving up through brand, utility, and platform distribution. Short dramas are moving up through content volume and aggressive mobile-native entertainment.

Both are taking spots from the old default internet apps. Telegram and Temu were in March's combined top 10. In April, Claude and NetShort took those spots instead.

Distribution still wins the top of the board, which is why ChatGPT, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and Gemini are so hard to move. But the bottom of the top 10 is becoming more available to apps with a clear format and aggressive acquisition. AI has the utility story. Short dramas have the content story.

I expect May to test whether Claude can stay in the combined top 10 and whether short dramas keep rotating new winners into the chart. If both happen, the bottom of the downloads leaderboard might finally stop being boring.

App Intelligence for Everyone!

The insights in this report come right out of our App Intelligence platform, which offers access to download and revenue estimates, installed SDKs, and more! Learn more about the tools or schedule a demo with our team to get started.

Are you a Journalist? You can get access to our app and market intelligence for free through the Appfigures for Journalists program. Contact us for more details.

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.