August is behind us, ending the usual summer slowdown resulting from more people touching grass than tapping screens. The slowdown was milder than last year's, which is good for the app economy: downloads and revenue both rose from July and from last August.
We crunched the numbers and ranked the top apps, by downloads and revenue, in August and here are your leaders.
FYI - We recently launched live app market leaderboards so you can follow the trends in real time, and they're open to the public. Take a look →
ChatGPT was the most downloaded app in the universe in August, making its way into 53M new devices, which while high, is lower than July which was lower than June, which was lower than May, according to our estimates.
Competitors are eating into ChatGPT's downloads and in 2026 it's hard to unsee it.
TikTok maintained its second spot with 40M estimated downloads, but unlike ChatGPT, downloads have been fairly stable - even post-split.
WhatsApp and Instagram flipped in August with the third musketeer, Facebook, following behind to round out the top five. Meta continues to own the chart, but as demand for AI and agents grows I'm not sure that will continue for long. But then again, it's Facebook.
A new icon popped into the list in August that I've been expecting for quite some time. Not this specific app, but really any from its category.
DramaWave is the app and short drama streaming is the category. This is DramaWave's first time on the chart and only the second time an app from its category makes it to the chart. The first time was earlier this year, so this is all new.
Downloads doubled from January to 19M in August, landing DramaWave in 9th place overall.
For context, Disney+ and Netflix, two of the largest traditional streamers out there, got the same number of downloads in August but combined.
DramaWave's spike might be temporary, but the category is here to stay.
Together, Appfigures Intelligence shows the most downloaded apps made their way into 299M devices in August. A bit more than July and a bit less than pre-summer. A slow summer, as expected, but still larger than the last. And now that the holiday season is here and we have new platforms fighting for users I expect to see new faces on this chart in September.
TikTok held on to its #1 spot in the world, earning $261M after fees in August, according to Appfigures Intelligence. A far cry from its record-breaking days last year, but par for the course post-split. But TikTok's reign might be coming to an end.
ChatGPT was the second highest earner, bringing in $230M in net revenue in August, according to our estimates. ChatGPT's revenue grew by double-digit millions of dollars in both July and August, which adds up to a total of ~14% since June.
This continued growth is amazing for an app of that scale, and at this rate, we expect it to overtake TikTok's #1 position in a matter of months.
But while it retained the lead in terms of absolute revenue it lost the lead in a way that could stunt its growth...
First - YouTube, CapCut, and Google One round out the top five highest-earning apps in the world in August. The same top 5 we saw in July and June, and potentially September.
Claude rose into the 7th spot in August having entered the chart in July. Our estimates show it earned $82M after store fees, which is the most it's ever earned since launching back in 2024. And it gets better.
Earlier this year, ChatGPT led in absolute revenue and also in Revenue per Download (RpD), calculated by dividing the month's revenue by the month's new total downloads. For subscription apps, this seemingly simple metric captures both growth, churn, and revenue optimization.
According to our estimates, Claude took the lead from Grok in August, who took the lead from ChatGPT in May, with an RpD of $5.92 vs ChatGPT's $4.29.
This isn't really surprising considering ChatGPT's scale in and out of the US, which also explains Grok's higher RpD. But it also means ChatGPT's rivals can monetize at its level or better, which is important to keep in mind as both gain popularity.
Together, Appfigures Intelligence shows the top 10 highest earners earned a whopping $1.3B after store fees in August, which is just a tad higher than July but at this scale any new money is great.
Now that school is back in session and everyone is back from vacation I expect this number to continue to rise, especially as we head into what I expect to be the busiest holiday season in mobile.
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