Consumer demand for mobile AI chatbot applications seems to be cooling off, apart from ChatGPT. Earlier this month, Anthropic launched its first mobile app on the iOS platform, aiming to provide free and paid users with access to its Claude 3 model. Despite offering the same functionality as the web version and adding new features such as history sync and photo upload, the app only had a total of 157,000 downloads worldwide in its first week. In contrast, ChatGPT had 480,000 installations in the first five days of its launch in the United States, even though it was only available on iOS at the time.
Unlike the popularity of ChatGPT, Claude did not make a big splash on the App Store. Although ChatGPT quickly climbed to the top of the App Store and became one of the most successful new releases in 2023 (and the previous year), Claude's performance was relatively modest.
According to data from app intelligence company Appfigures, Claude reached its highest ranking in the free iPhone apps category in the United States on May 4th, reaching 55th place just a few days after its debut that month. However, as of Friday, the app is no longer among the top free iPhone apps in the United States, but ranks 51st in the free productivity apps category, a drop from 5th place in that category on May 4th.
In comparison, Claude ranked 50th on the productivity charts after seven days of its release, while ChatGPT had already climbed to 3rd place overall and 1st place in the productivity apps category within the first seven days of its release.
The main markets driving Claude's downloads are the United States, accounting for 50% of installations, followed by Japan and the United Kingdom at 11% and 8% respectively. However, the data indicates that interest in new AI applications has sharply declined since Claude's release, with downloads rapidly decreasing from five figures to four figures within the first week. This downward trend suggests that this competitor to ChatGPT may not have garnered the same consumer demand or brand recognition.
It is worth mentioning that ChatGPT was launched at a time when there was a market expectation for an official AI companion. Prior to its release, other third-party apps had capitalized on consumer interest in AI tools by branding themselves as "ChatGPT" or "AI chatbots," attempting to mislead users into thinking they were official products of OpenAI. Although most of these apps were actually expensive subscription software to access their AI features, some top-tier apps managed to attract millions of consumer spending before ChatGPT's App Store debut. The existence of these apps also contributed to the brand awareness of ChatGPT, which is lacking for Anthropic's Claude.
Claude has also been affected by the increasingly fierce competition in the AI field, especially since ChatGPT's initial launch on iOS. Google has incorporated AI technology into its suite of products, including its assistant and iOS search app. The company has also rebranded and upgraded its AI chatbot Bard as Gemini. Meanwhile, aggregators like Quora's Poe allow AI enthusiasts to try out ChatGPT, Claude, and a range of other AI models in one place.
