ChatGPT mobile app hits new milestone of $3 billion in consumer spending

ChatGPT has hit a new milestone of $3 billion in worldwide consumer spending on mobile as of this week, according to estimates from app intelligence provider Appfigures. This number represents the total spending on iOS and Android devices since the app launched in May 2023, when it first arrived, then on iOS only.

What is striking is that the bulk of this spending occurred this year. Worldwide, consumers spent an estimated US$2.48 billion on the ChatGPT mobile app in 2025, representing a 408% year-over-year increase from the US$487 million spent in 2024. In 2023, the first year of the app’s availability, the app generated US$42.9 million, before growing 1,036% to the 2024 figure.

These numbers represent a sharp rise in consumer adoption, compared to other popular apps. For example, it took ChatGPT 31 months to reach $3 billion in consumer spending, but TikTok, the top earner, took 58 months to do so, Appfigures told TechCrunch.

ChatGPT also reached this milestone faster than top streaming apps like Disney+ and HBO Max, which reached $3 billion in 42 months and 46 months, respectively.

However, xAI’s Grok is seeing a similar revenue trajectory to ChatGPT, compared to other AI competitors.

Grok was released in late 2023 to X Premium Plus subscribers before becoming more widely available last year. But if you compare the pace of consumer spending across AI applications, you’ll find that Grok comes closest to matching ChatGPT’s cumulative revenue at the same point, once it started monetizing. (You can see this in the chart below, which shows AI app spending corresponding to when each app started generating income.)

While the $3 billion in spending represents significant uptake by consumers, it is not the only way to measure adoption of AI applications or potential long-term revenue.

ChatGPT mobile customers purchase paid subscriptions, such as ChatGPT Plus at $20 per month or ChatGPT Pro at $200 per month for advanced users. But AI applications could generate revenue in other ways, including through developer demos and, perhaps soon, ChatGPT ads. Additionally, ChatGPT on Wednesday launched its own app store of sorts, which the company suggests will be monetized in some way in the future, its blog post noted.

Meanwhile, Google is exploring the possibility of moving its health search advertising business to AI-powered search, AI placement of ads, AI overviews, AI shopping, and an increasingly AI-powered discovery page, among others.

Anthropic is aiming for the business market, and is said to be on track to generate $70 billion in revenue by 2028.