News Summary

Generative AI applications have witnessed a significant boom in the first half of 2025, as reported by Sensor Tower. The apps achieved 1.7 billion downloads, a sharp rise from 1 billion in the latter half of 2024, while in-app revenue doubled to $1.87 billion from $932 million. Users spent over 15.6 billion hours on these apps, an increase from 8.5 billion hours in H2 2024. Asia emerged as the fastest-growing market, with a 42.6% share in downloads, driven by India and Mainland China. North America maintained a leading position in market share for in-app purchases at 40%. ChatGPT continues to lead in in-app revenue globally, except in China where DeepSeek has performed better post-launch, and its engagement patterns are increasingly resembling those of major search engines. The usage of ChatGPT has expanded beyond work-related purposes to include health, wellness, and lifestyle queries. The term ‘AI’ has become prevalent in app descriptions, contributing to a surge in downloads.