Google’s Got What Everyone Needs - Top Apps in the World in May

May is behind us so I crunched the numbers and ranked the highest earning and most downloaded mobile apps in the world for the month. And…

Things are interesting, but mostly because they aren’t.

Let me show you what I mean.

Kinda Stuck… The Highest Earning Apps in May

Unlike the economy, app revenue continued its growth in May. The distribution changed a bit, but the overall revenue continues the trend I started highlighting two years ago.

TikTok was the highest earning mobile app in the world in May, bringing in a cool $300M in after-fee revenue from the App Store and Google Play, according to Appfigures Intelligence.

TikTok held the top position in our charts since October of 2022 after dethroning HBO Max. It hasn’t let the top spot go ever since. That’s a 44 month streak with no challengers. ChatGPT could get there, but it’s not going to happen this year.

ChatGPT was the second highest earning app in the world in May, hauling an estimated $201M after store fees, according to our estimates. Like TikTok, that’s a touch less than April’s revenue, but understandable considering the massive challenge that Anthropic is giving OpenAI this year.

The competition may have slowed ChatGPT’s growth down, but hasn’t stopped it from reaching an enormous milestone: $5B in revenue. And it did it faster than any other rival.

YouTube, CapCut, and Google One round out the top five in a chart that saw no new entrants, each earning a tiny bit less, and only one real transition - Google One. And unlike its chart pals, Google One’s revenue did grow, a lot!

Google One, the app you’d use to buy more storage for your Google Drive, saw revenue rise 9% in May which helped it climb two spots in our rankings, pushing down Tinder and Disney+.

Together, the top 10 highest earning apps brought in $1.22B after fees. A touch less than April, but not enough to be worrisome. Now that we’re in the big B territory I’ll add another decimal point so we can see smaller changes.

Adieu Claude? The Most Downloaded Apps in May

Unlike revenue, downloads are getting hotter!

Our estimates show that ChatGPT was the most downloaded app in the world in May, again, making its way into 61M devices through the App Store and Google Play. That’s a 15% increase from April, showing OpenAI is still a dominant player on mobile even if the news cycle turned to Anthropic’s Claude.

Claude didn’t make the cut in May after appearing on the chart in April. Claude’s monthly downloads declined a bit in May to place it just below the top 10 overall, but it still managed to snag a spot on the App Store‘s list.

I don’t think it’s gone forever, but I’m curious to see if Anthropic can turn news momentum into continuos growth on mobile. So far it’s been a challenge.

TikTok earned the second spot with 43M downloads with downloads rising a bit. Not enough to write home about, but considering the scale here, any growth is impressive.

Instagram, Facebook, and Gemini rounded out the top five with pretty much the same downloads as April. With two exceptions, all incumbents held on to their positions in May, a reminder that the top is so big it’s hard to achieve the needed scale just like that.

Together, the top 10 most downloaded apps made their way into 318M devices through the App Store and Google Play. That’s a mild 3% growth over April, but the growth cascades beyond the top apps making May a good month all around.

Google One’s Amazing Run, By The Numbers

Google One was the only app in the revenue top five that grew in May.

Our estimates show Google One brought in $94M in after-fee revenue in May.. That’s up 9% from April, and enough to move it ahead of Tinder and Disney+ in our rankings.

And that’s just May.

Google One has been hovering around $100M/month for almost a year. It crossed that mark in September, October, November, December, January, and March, peaking at $114M in November.

According to Appfigures Intelligence, Google One brought in $1.2B after fees over the last 12 months - roughly double what it earned the previous year!

Growth seems to be slowing down as we get closer to summer, which isn’t generally kind to business apps. Considering Google One’s scale, even maintaining this new level is impressive for an app that offers cloud storage.

But that’s also why Google One is able to continue its growth - it’s selling something that once you lock onto Google’s ecosystem you need, and building for “need” is always stronger than building for “want”.

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.

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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.