MMM: DeepSeek Outpaces AI Competitors In DAU Growth

The arrival of DeepSeek, an AI chatbot developed by a Chinese company, prompted shockwaves in US equity markets last week. Nearly ~$1 trillion of market value was wiped out upon news that DeepSeek was developed at a fraction of the cost of leading AI chatbots backed by US companies, and in most cases, can outperform these chatbots on various key metrics. This excitement around DeepSeek has led to unparalleled download growth for the app, as global downloads outpaced ChatGPT in the first 19 days post-launch per Sensor Tower estimates.

Key Takeaways:

Per ST data, DeepSeek surged to the top of the US Apple App Store charts on Monday (1/27/2025), and then quickly climbed to the top spot on the US Google Play Store the following day. DeepSeek has maintained its position as the top ranked app across both US app stores, amassing ~2mn US downloads since its launch
DeepSeek has garnered more global downloads than ChatGPT during its respective 19 day post-launch period, as the app has now received over 23mn downloads, more than 2x of ChatGPT. DeepSeek has averaged more global downloads per day than the combined AI cohort since last Sunday, January 26, 2025
- DeepSeek outperformed other popular US-developed AI chatbots in that same timeframe, as its total number of worldwide app downloads in the 19 days post-launch period was more than quadruple that of Microsoft Copilot (4mn), Claude (311k), Perplexity (193k) and Gemini (171k)
- In the 19 days since DeepSeek’s launch, China is the top country by app downloads, accounting for 11% of total downloads, while India, France, and the US each account for 7% of the app’s downloads, respectively
ST estimates suggest that average DeepSeek AI mobile app DAUs from 1/22 - 1/28 increased more than 700% compared to the previous week (1/15 - 1/21), outpacing competing AI chatbot apps such as Gemini (+38%), Perplexity (+11%), Claude (+6%), Microsoft Copilot (+4%) and ChatGPT (-1%) in user growth
DeepSeek’s swift mobile adoption is coupled with impressive growth for its website, with total visits and unique visitors up 650% and 590% WoW, respectively, during the same period. DeepSeek’s surge of desktop usage is in contrast to declining total visits across the cohort (ex-copilot), down 4% WoW, while unique visitors remained flat

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Written by: Kara Lee, Brand & Digital Advertising Analyst

Date: February 2025