This Week in Apps - Will Grok Beat ChatGPT?

This Week in Apps is a short, no-fluff, round-up of interesting things that happened in the mobile industry. Here are our top highlights.

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U.S. Revenue Index (vs. 30 days ago)

Insights

1. Grok Dethroned ChatGPT Last Week - Can It Sustain this Momentum?

xAI launched Grok 3, a model it claims to be superior to OpenAI's latest update (o3-mini) last week, and the downloads followed. Within 24 hours, Grok became the most popular app in the US App Store, where it remained for several days, and is now sitting at #2, just below ChatGPT.

While it's dancing with ChatGPT, Grok also skipped over Google's Gemini and Anthropic's Claude in downloads and revenue.

A big week for AI's latest entrant. Let's see what the numbers say.

2025 has been a very active year for AI apps, and rightfully so, it's a $2B industry that's growing like wildfire and churning out new app millionaires in the process.

First it was DeepSeek, the Chinese app that took the AI world by surprise and made its way into millions of pockets in just a few days. Its reign was short, but almost right behind it came Grok's standalone app, and then last week Grok 3. xAI's latest advancement made the standalone app a true competitor to ChatGPT, undercutting ChatGPT's pro plan with a free one.

Wild!

I've been following the release of Grok as a standalone app ever since it was soft-launched in Australia last year. Now, a few short months later, the app is available globally (with a few exceptions) and packs everything ChatGPT has, including a reasoning model (like o3-mini), web search, image generation, and as of yesterday, voice mode.

Grok 3 is being released in parts, likely to gain as much attention as possible, and that seems to be working.

According to our estimates, Grok's rise began on Monday (2/17) and as of the 22nd, already managed to cross one million downloads from the App Store. The trend even includes one day where Grok's downloads outpaced ChatGPT's, but only by a few thousand.

FYI - Grok isn't available on Google Play yet, so I kept the comparison to the App Store alone.

In its dance with ChatGPT, Grok also outpaced all of the other competitors, including Claude, Perplexity, Google Gemini, and Microsoft Copilot.

Another thing new in the Grok app is a new in-app subscription called Super Grok that costs $30/mo. or $300/yr. and unlocks all the AI just like having a Premium+ subscription to X unlocks, but at just a little more than half the cost.

It's been out for just 5 days, but in those 5 days, Grok managed to make more money than all other AI apps except for ChatGPT.

Our App Intelligence shows users spent a little over $340K on Super Grok so far, which I guesstimate to mean a little over 10,000 subscribers (if we assume a 30% annual and 70% monthly split, which isn't exactly conservative but I think works here). And keep in mind, Grok is free and the premium features are also available to X Premium+ users.

In the same period, Perplexity, Claude, Copilot, and Gemini earned less - in that order. Perplexity was the closest at $258K and Gemini farthest at $28K, according to our estimates. Claude was somewhere in the middle and Copilot was closer to Gemini.

I don't expect this order to change any time soon, but I'm very curious to see if Grok can get closer to ChatGPT's growth levels from 2023.

There's something whimsical to Grok that xAI has refined in this latest iteration. Between its capabilities, which feel similar to ChatGPT's o3-mini model, the single model approach that doesn't require selecting what you're talking to, and its great response speed, I expect Grok to become a concerning competitor to ChatGPT.

2. TikTok is Back in the US After Enormous Losses to ByteDance, Stores, and Creators

TikTok magically appeared on the App Store and Google Play two weeks ago, which means it could bring back its in-app purchases. TikTok became the most popular app in the US App Store and Google Play within a few hours of its return and climbed the top grossing chart within a few days.

It lost the #1 position in the App Store to ChatGPT a few days ago, but is still ranking high just like it did pre-ban.

As the highest-earning app, I was curious to see just how much money was lost in the 26 days of the TikTok Ban.

Can you guess?

Last month I looked at the economics of TikTok, which showed the giant is making so much money from selling coins that the fees it pays Apple and Google alone account for more than what ChatGPT makes in an entire month.

If you haven't guessed already, the loss was massive.

Using the average growth rate from the last six months and our App Intelligence, I calculated TikTok's 26-day ban to amount to a loss of $137M of gross revenue - what users pay to buy coins, which they then give creators they like.

That's almost as much as all of December, which was TikTok's biggest month of revenue (and several days longer).

Splitting it up, our estimates show Apple and Google lost a whopping $41M in fees. That's as much as streaming app Peacock made on the App Store in January after fees. Talk about scale.

Bytedance splits what's left after fees with creators, leaving a net loss of $48M to the company and $48M to creators on the platform.

Yes, individual creators lost that much in under a month. Now I see why the administration rushed to bring the app back.

We don't know why TikTok was allowed back on the App Store and Google Play, and whether it actually ended up selling to a US company, but one thing I'm pretty sure of is that it's not going away any time soon.

P.S. - If you happen to know how it came back please let me know.

3. Contrary to Common Belief, the Dating App Market is Still Growing - Up 10% in 2024!

There's been a lot of talk about the dating apps category declining in the last year but the numbers tell a different story - not of declining but rather of maturing.

Oh, and the money is still there - according to our App intelligence, consumer spending in the top dating apps has grown 10% in 2024 and crossed $3B for the first time.

But while things do look great, the market's evolution is not as simple.

I analyzed the top 10 dating apps in the US and found several surprises. Developers, if you're considering building a dating app you should pay close attention because while you can't compete with the leader, you can certainly succeed with the right approach.

The leader, in case you weren't sure, is Tinder. The OG swiper grossed a whopping $1.6B in 2024, according to our estimates. That's what it's users spent and before it forked over store fees. That's a new revenue record for Tinder which also celebrated its highest single-month revenue in December.

The haul marks a 10% growth from the previous year, which is the lowest in my comparison (among apps with a positive trend), but considering the difference is more than what other apps have earned in total, it's good.

But that's not something I can say about every dating app. Bumble, the "other" Tinder, isn't doing well at all. Yellow Tinder saw revenue shrink in 2024, down 3% from the previous year for a total of $735M in gross revenue - again, before store fees.

Bumble's unique interaction strategy was "cool" for a while, but over the last few years smaller rivals have brought novel ideas to dating apps that have been clawing revenue away.

One such app is Raya, which saw the most revenue growth in 2024 - 64% up from 2023. Raya's approach to dating is the opposite of most apps. The app is fully gated and requires daters to apply to join first, and then subscribe if/after they are approved.

Approved users have spent $80M in the app in 2024, and the way the trend is sloping I expect to see it do even more in 2025.

The other mainstream dating app, Hinge, also experienced growth in 2024 with consumer spending up 28%. Hinge ranked third when comparing revenue growth rates and also when looking at actual revenue. Hinge's stead growth isn't slowing down.

The Secret to Success in Dating Apps

The League and DateMyAge are fairly small in terms of revenue, but not in terms of growth. The two grew 45% and 28%, respectively in 2024. This show demand is shifting away from "boring" traditional dating apps and to apps that offer something unique.

Swiping was that something unique for Tinder back in the day, and it built such an efficient machine on top of it that it's still in the lead. Bumble had its "women talk first" approach which lost momentum mainly for gated communities.

There are quite a few dating apps offering that currently, and while small, most have been growing in a market most thought is done for.

It isn't, the only question is what's the next swipe.

4. Duolingo Pulled the Weirdest PR Stunt Last Week

Duolingo has had amazing success on the App Store and Google Play seeing its revenue continue to defy the norm and grow consistently and efficiently.

That's why I was surprised when Duolingo announced the death of its mascot, Duo the Owl in January.

The easy answer is that it's a PR stunt - and it certainly is - but did it work?

While it looked like a surprise, Duo has been sick for a long time. I say that from having seen the app's icon for more than a year now, showing the green owl in various states of sickness.

Planters, the peanut company, did something similar in 2020 by killing their mascot (the big peanut with a monocle and a top hat). They subsequently brought him back to life a month later as a baby peanut. It was weird, but Mr Peanut was 104 years old and was ready for a refresh.

Duo wasn't that old, but if we're following Planter's campaign, Suo will be back very soon.

Looking at the downloads, the stunt worked! Duolingo's new downloads reached a new all-time high in the initial week of the campaign.

Our App Intelligence shows downloads in the week of February 10th (the campaign started on the 11th) rose to 4.3M, more than a million downloads higher than 2025's weekly average and three times higher than the average just a few years ago.

Revenue wasn't affected by the stunt, but with Duolingo's ability to trun downloads in revenue, the influx of new users will likely drive revenue up soon.

Duolingo is already hinting at a way to bring DUo back by completing lessons, so I suspect this campaign isn't over.

5. Telegram Pulled a Reddit Move this Valentine's Day - And It Worked!

I've been following Telegram's revenue ever since the messaging app debuted a direct monetization model that isn't ads a few years ago. Since the addition, revenue has been growing steadily.

Our App Intelligence shows Telegram earned $71M after store fees in 2024.

Revenue spiked on valentine's day as many of Telegram's users professed their love for the service - just kidding, revenue spiked because Telegram pulled a page from Reddit's playbook and it worked.

Telegram launched nine collectible gifts (like stickers), all of which were limited. Four of those could be turned into customizable NFTs which could then be traded, extending their reach.

Reddit got into the same business in the past and to date, its best revenue peaks were all related to when new collectibles came out.

The new gifts propelled Telegram's single-day revenue to the highest it's ever been. Our estimates show Telegram earned $735K from its mobile app on the 14th. And that's after store fees.

Selling something limited and making money is kind of expected, but here's what I didn't expect: Telegram's reach.

Normally, such campaigns get a lot of revenue growth from the US, which happens to be Telegram's biggest paying market, but this one saw growth all over. Revenue in the US rose 82% when compared to the Friday before while revenue from Germany, Telegram's second largest market by revenue, rose 108%. Revenue in Poland rose 312% and in the UK rose 106% - both are in Telegram's top five markets.

I'm not sure if this is a fluke or a real growth strategy. NFTs were fire-hot for a little while a few years back but lost their momentum just as quickly as they gained it. But between things like this, meme coins, and even Bitcoin dancing with six-digit value, they all might be making a comeback.

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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.