As of this week, ChatGPT has reached a brand new milestone of $3 billion in global consumer spending on mobile devices, in accordance with estimates from the app intelligence provider App characters. This figure represents total spending across iOS and Android devices for the reason that app's launch in May 2023 when it first launched, then just for iOS.
What's notable is that the vast majority of this spending occurred this yr. Globally, consumers spent an estimated $2.48 billion on the ChatGPT mobile app in 2025, a 408% year-over-year increase from $487 million in 2024. In 2023, the app's first yr of availability, it generated $42.9 million in revenue before growing 1,036% to succeed in the 2024 figure.
These numbers represent a pointy increase in consumer adoption in comparison with other popular apps. For example, ChatGPT took 31 months to succeed in $3 billion in consumer spending, but top earner TikTok took 58 months to achieve this, Appfigures told TechCrunch.
ChatGPT also reached this milestone faster than top streaming apps like Disney+ and HBO Max, which reached the $3 billion mark in 42 and 46 months, respectively.
However, xAI's Grok has seen similar revenue performance to ChatGPT in comparison with other AI competitors.
Grok was released to X Premium Plus subscribers in late 2023 before becoming more widely available last yr. However, when comparing the speed of consumer spending across different AI apps, Grok got here closest to ChatGPT's cumulative revenue at the identical time the corporate began monetizing. (You can see this within the table below, which shows AI app spending relative to when each app began monetizing.)
While the $3 billion in spending represents significant consumer adoption, it just isn’t the one solution to measure AI app adoption or potential long-term revenue.
ChatGPT's mobile customers purchase paid subscriptions, resembling the ChatGPT Plus for $20 per thirty days or the ChatGPT Pro for $200 per thirty days for advanced users. But AI apps also can generate revenue in other ways, including through developer offers and perhaps soon for ChatGPTShow. Additionally, ChatGPT launched its own app store of sorts on Wednesday, which the corporate says shall be monetized ultimately in the long run. his blog post noted.
Google, meanwhile, is exploring the potential to transition its healthy search ad business to AI-powered search, placing ads in AI Mode, AI Overviews, AI Shopping, and an increasingly AI-powered Discover page, amongst other things.
Anthropic is targeting the business market and is reportedly on target to succeed in $70 billion in revenue by 2028.
