According to app analytics firm AppFigures, since its debut in mid-January, the DeepSeek app has been downloaded more than 1.2 million times on the Play Store and over 1.9 million times on the App Store globally. However, the actual number of downloads may be higher, as DeepSeek’s Play Store page shows more than 5 million downloads.
The app’s rapid rise in the rankings follows a surge in popularity, driven by the release of a series of open-source AI models that rival those from leading Western AI companies such as Anthropic, OpenAI, Meta, and Google.
The Chinese company claims its AI models were trained at a fraction of the cost of those from OpenAI and Meta, using considerably less powerful AI chips.
DeepSeek’s app serves as a ChatGPT alternative, powered by the lab’s V3 model. It allows users to analyze files, answer questions, and access information from the web. The app is free, and users can upload files and sync their chat history across devices.
While DeepSeek currently leads the charts, it will need to reach 300 million weekly users to surpass OpenAI’s ChatGPT for long-term dominance in the chatbot space.
DeepSeek and its models have been receiving significant attention from the tech industry in recent days, with startups like Perplexity and Gloo—Pat Gelsinger’s new venture, former CEO of Intel—already incorporating DeepSeek into their platforms.