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Sensor Tower · Abraham Yousef · January 2025
MMM: 2024 Mobile Trends Recap
Sensor Tower data shows that prominent AI art and image generating apps had user churn rates north of 80% in 2024, while AI chatbot and assistant apps actually increased their penetration of retained (or returning) users on a YoY basis. Mobile games continued to dominate consumer attention in 2024 as six out of the top ten fastest growing apps by user time spent in the year were games.
Key Takeaways:
ST data shows that out of the ~100 apps that had user churn rates north of 80% in the year, six were AI art generators or image editor apps, including Revive, Reface, ImagineArt, Wonder, Face Dance and Mimic, which suggests that these apps have very little sticking power amongst consumers, posing a near term threat for apps in this category in 2025
Out of the top ten apps that experienced the most material increases in their retained user penetration rates, two were AI apps, namely the AI chatbot PolyBuzz and the AI assistant Cici
Dating app fatigue has affected app adoption and usage of dating apps globally. Per ST data, global app downloads and MAUs for the studied dating app cohort fell 7% and 4% YoY, respectively, with declines in YoY growth accelerating from FY23 by -12ppts and -1ppts, respectively
Continuous declines in app downloads and MAUs for dating apps, coupled with heightened competition from more niche dating apps, could prompt the introduction of various new features and functions on these apps to drive consumer interest
Fueled by international expansion, the introduction of new features and functions, the rollout of popular new AI models and growing consumer interest in the space, ST data shows that OpenAI’s ChatGPT has been the most downloaded AI app since May’23 (its respective launch) with 452mn worldwide downloads, more than Google Gemini, Character AI, Talkie, Microsoft Copilot, Question AI, Perplexity and Claude combined
2023 saw unparalleled growth from Chinese e-tailers entering the US market, while 2024 highlighted challenges facing these brands once they hit saturation. Temu and SHEIN pulled back on their US ad spend in 2024 which likely led to decreases in downloads as Temu and SHEIN had the highest percentage of downloads from paid sources across the cohort in 2H24, at 19% and 16% of downloads, respectively
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