This Week in Apps - Catching Up?

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. Manus AI Joins the AI App Race, But Can It Really Compete?

A few months ago yet another AI app came on the scene and stole the news cycle for a bit. That was Manus AI, an autonomous AI agent that's more autonomous than other agents and can complete complex, multi-step tasks, with a simple prompt.

Manus officially rolled out in early March as invite-only but only recently rolled out a mobile app and an in-app purchase (and I managed to get in), and the first thing I wanted to see is how its launch stacks with other AI apps.

According to our App Intelligence, Manus AI got 130K downloads in the 13 days after it launched. And it's worth noting that these numbers only cover Manus on the App Store because even though there is a version for Android and it has gotten downloads, it's not popular enough to get an estimate yet.

The downloads are primarily coming from the US, which contributed 26% so far. That's consistent with many other AI apps, but surprisingly, Saudi Arabia is Manus' second biggest driver of downloads and the only other country with a double-digit share of 11%.

The UK, Germany, and France round out the top five but the list is very long and contains every country we have estimates for.

This number of downloads, while impressive, puts Manus at last place when compared to other AI apps. ChatGPT, Grok, and Gemini all had 2M+ downloads in their first 13 days on the App Store. The only one Manus is close to is Claude, which opened to just 220K downloads, according to our estimates.

Considering it's more than an order of magnitude away, I think Manus has a hard task ahead of it.

But what about money?

Our estimates show that since launch, users have spent a total of $163K on Manus' subscriptions. Much like the downloads, the US contributed the largest share with Saudi Arabia right behind it. The UK, Japan, and the UAE round out the top five and if you're thinking what I'm thinking the answer is yes, this isn't common.

Unlike downloads, Manus' ability to monetize early on is an advantage not all competitors poses. Grok leads in this category - the only AI app with more than a million in revenue so early on - with ChatGPT getting close and then Manus in third but following a pretty big cliff.

Not terrible, but really makes you think about the importance of branding not just for discovery but also for conversion.

2. Instagram And TikTok Have Been Dethroned! The Most Downloaded Apps in the World in March

March was a very interesting month in app downloads. I crunched the numbers and ranked the most downloaded apps in the world and was very surprised to see a new winner at the top that isn't Instagram or TikTok.

This hasn't happened in a while.

TikTok, which was the top app in February, was the third most downloaded app in the world in March. Appfigures Intelligence shows 45M fresh downloads during the month from the App Store and Google Play. Three million higher than February, which makes sense considering it's a short month and the ban in the US, and about a million shy of last March.

Instagram, which was the top app for much of 2024, came in second in March with 46M new estimated downloads. Also higher than February but a bunch lower than last March...

This pair owned the top position for a very long time, but thir reign may have ended. In March, the most downloaded app in the world was ChatGPT.

According to our estimates, ChatGPT saw 46M downloads - just a shade higher than Instagram before rounding - in March. It's interesting to see such growth from ChatGPT considering it's gotten a bunch of new competitors this year.

Downloads rose 28% between February and March, and are already 148% higher when comparing Q1 2025 to Q1 2024. While hockey-stick-like, this isn't a spike but rather a trend.

Facebook and WhatsApp round out the top five most downloaded apps in the world and given the rise of ChatGPT, this may be what the list will look like for months to come.

According to our estimates, the top 10 most downloaded apps in the world saw a total of 339M downloads in March. A good chunk higher than February but a little less than last March which means the negative trend of downloads continues. The Mobile Downloads Index agrees, down 14.9% so far this year.

3. March Was a Mega Month for App Revenue - Here are the Highest Earning Apps in the World

I crunched the numbers and ranked the highest-earning mobile apps in the world in March. I have good news and bad news.

The good news is that the top 10 highest-earning apps in March saw revenue rise a whopping 14% vs February. The bad news is that the list hasn't really changed when compared to February's. Two apps swaped positions and two apps replaced two other apps at the very bottom, but that's pretty much it. The rest of the list is static.

Instead of boring you with the positions, which didn't really change in March, I'll focus on what really changed - the revenue.

TikTok's net revenue, which seems to to be growing to infinity, rose 48% in March to $296M. That's what Bytedance gets to keep after Apple and Google take their cut. TikTok's revenue continues to amaze me, and it's uncertain future in the US, where most of that money is coming from, is something I'm constantly watching.

YouTube's net revenue rose 7% in March to $160M, according to our estimates. Not as impressive as TikTok's, but is good considering YouTube share some of this with creators, so there's more to go around.

Disney+, Tinder, and Max didn't move but earned more money. Disney+ and Max saw net revenue increase by about 7% while Tinder's net revenue rose 14% to $117M.

That rounds out the top five, but I want to take a quick look at #6 - ChatGPT. Last month, we ranked ChatGPT in the same position with $70M of estimated net revenue and I thought this was where it'll stay for a while. The store had a different idea.

According to out estimates, ChatGPT brought in $100M of net revenue - that's roughly $142M of consumer spending within the in-app. This growth is exceptional and shows the worth of a brand name because it's happening at a time where new competitors are popping up left and right.

Google One and Audible flipped with the latter taking over the 7th spot. Audible's growth is impressive, but I wouldn't really call this news.

CapCut made a comeback in March and ranked 9th with $65M of estimated net revenue. The last time we saw CapCut on our list was back in December with $59M.

Together, the top 10 highest-earning apps broughts in 1.16B in net revenue, what the publishers get to keep after store fees, from the App Store and Google Play - 14% higher than February and 50% higher than last March.

The trend I've been yapping about for a year now is still going strong - downloads are harder to come by while revenue is growing for those who try.

4. Remini Rides the AI Cartoon Wave and the Downloads Double, But Something's Missing

Last week I looked at how ChatGPT's new image generation sparked demand for cartoon generators and how downloads exploded for the apps that had the best App Store Optimization.

Well, both apps I looked at last week are still trending high! Downloads dropped a bit but are still significantly higher than before. Even revenue increased!

That's why I wasn't surprised when I saw Remini's downloads doubled. But I was curious to see if its organic or not. First, let's look at the downloads:

According to our App Intelligence, Remini's downloads doubled last week and stayed high for the entire week. The trend started sloping down this week, but downloads are still much higher than the average.

Between 3/29 and 4/8, the day downloads started surging, and by the writing of this insight, Remini got 7.3M estimated downloads. That's 3.6M downloads more than the same period earlier in March.

Brazil, the US, India, Indonesia, and Turkey saw the biggest increases in absolute terms. Together, these five countries were responsible for 4M downloads since downloads doubled, and of those 1.6M were above the expected average.

In four of the five countries, the increase marked a several-hundred percent rise. The odd one out if India, which gets Remini the vast majority of downloads so an increase of 292K downloads isn't a big deal.

But, did they convert?

Not as much as I'd expected. According to our estimates, Remini's revenue rose by less than one percent, a small enough number that could be the result of normal market fluctuation and nothing else.

Cases of many new downloads but little to no new revenue tend to mean the push wasn't organic, like what we saw with ToonApp and ToonMe last week but rather supported by ads, and that's what I think happened here.

A look at our Apple Search Ads Intelligence shows that in the last week, Remini has spent on a variety of keywords that include "ghibli" in them. So much that Remini had the highest share of impressions across all competitors in the US.

I'd still expect some of those downloads to convert, so this isn't great, but it's another good example of how important organic optimization is.

5. Market Volatility Sends Everyone to the App Store (and Google Play)

Financial markets in the US have had quite a stormy week. The kind that breaks records and makes those who knew what to do end the week with a new Lambo.

Looking at downloads of popular apps in the US, lots of people wanted their shot at a Lambo, causing downloads of the top investment apps to more than double!

I compared the download trends of Robinhood, Fidelity, Schwab, and E*Trade this week vs the average using our App Intelligence intelligence and the results were exactly as I had expected - demand for all four rose instantly!

Of the four, Schwab had the smallest increase, growing just 61%. E*Trade did even better!

According to our estimates, E*Trade's downloads rose 73% this week compared to its average in March.

When it comes to traditional investment apps, Fidelity is in the lead and that's why its downloads rose a whopping 97% this week. Nearly double its daily average.

And in first place, with both the highest growth and most downloads, we have Robinhood, which saw downloads more than double this week.

The four apps got a total of 154K downloads from the App Store and Google Play on Monday and Tuesday. That means 154K new investors (and potential lambo owners) used an app to invest in just two days of market volatility.

While I'm no financial advisor, I don't expect volatility to stop any time soon. I do expect to see, however, the impact of market conditions on apps, and those who are ready will win.

Are you ready?

App Intelligence for Everyone!

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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.