🤖 🏈 Claude bet the Super Bowl on one message: “No ads in your AI.” Downloads jumped 211% week-over-week. Every other major AI app dipped or stayed flat. And the craziest part? The biggest day wasn’t game day. It was a week later. That’s not a spike. That’s momentum.

💡 Prime example of a different kind of growth strategy. No big feature renaissance. No rebrand. Just tighter economics inside the app. The product narrative cools. The revenue narrative improves.

🔥 Grok just matched ChatGPT’s first year revenue on mobile. ~$79M in 12 months (estimated). ChatGPT did ~$80M in its first 12. The difference? ChatGPT launched alone. Grok launched into a knife fight. If this pace holds, year two gets interesting fast.

💀 Call of Duty: Warzone Mobile shuts down April 17. Lifetime estimates: 24.8M downloads, $17.3M gross ($12.1M after stores' fees). For context, the still-functional COD Mobile sits at 459M installs and $2.47B. Same franchise. Completely different scale.

📊 Step’s impressive growth story predates today's MrBeast deal. An estimated ~9.3M total downloads since 2019. January added ~120K installs, up 97% YoY. The momentum was already there in a big way. What comes next will be a test of the streamer's appeal.

🕹️ Something interesting is happening with NYT Games. Crossplay soft-launched for ~8 months, ~228K installs. Then it goes live for all and adds ~186K in a day. Now it's the No. 1 free app on iOS. Feels like brand gravity has kicked in. This could be a gateway, not just a game.

Polymarket's downloads explode as Wall Street bets $2B on prediction markets 💥 1,172% increase in downloads in 2025, most came in December

The highest-earning mobile apps in the world in December: 🥇 TikTok ($284M) 🥈 ChatGPT ($229M) 🥉 YouTube ($148M) Revenue estimates after store fees from Appfigures Intelligence

The most downloaded mobile apps in the world in December: 🥇 ChatGPT (49.6M) 🥈 TikTok (41.9M) 🥉 Instagram (40.2M) Downloads estimates from Appfigures Intelligence

X pulled its best subscription feature out of the app. Looked reckless. Turns out it was a demand test. Standalone pricing unlocked more revenue than hiding it in X subs. Now X + Grok just had their biggest revenue month ever. Unbundling didn’t kill value. It exposed it.

🐴 Red Dead Redemption (the free Netflix edition) was downloaded 5M times in December. Last month's #3 most installed mobile game on iOS worldwide. Ahead of Roblox, Subway Surfers, Clash Royale. It's #88 so far in Jan. But still above titles incl. Pokémon TCG and Coin Master.

🥶 December mobile gaming revenue fell 3.5%. Top 10 games worldwide: $865M total. $32M less than November. Positive take: the drop was concentrated up top. Overall spending was down just 0.6%. Downloads? Those grew. Top 10 worldwide saw 150M total. Up 16M (+12%) from November.

🧩 Kotlin Multiplatform is used by just 2% of the top 10K iOS apps. React Native? ~14%. Flutter? ~12%. Yet KMP apps already earn 27% of this cohort's revenue. React Native does 41%. Flutter 32%. KMP still trails in adoption. But with these results? It might not for long.

🔥 Snapchat is making more money with fewer users. 📉 Downloads ↓ ~30% 📈 Revenue ↑ 63% 💰 The result: >$552M in 2025 ⬆️ More than all of 2024 ⬆️⬆️ More than 2023 + 2024 combined Other platforms = still seeking the right feature mix. Snap heads into 2026 with momentum.

🎬 ByteDance dominating video editing with CapCut wasn’t luck. It was a blueprint. 📸 Now it's running the same playbook with Hypic. ✅ It's also seeing similar early results. ❓ The only question is how fast the photo editing incumbents react.

🧠 Why would Meta pay $2B for something it could clone? It didn't just buy tech or revenue. It bought the thing money alone can't build: Real usage patterns from millions of paying users. Data that can make better agents. That's the competitive moat justifying a $2B price tag.

The highest earning mobile games in the world in November: 🥇 Last War ($119M) 🥈 Whiteout Survival ($115M) 🥉 Royal Match ($114M) • Revenue is estimated after store fees

The most downloaded mobile games in the world in November: 🥇 Block Blast (23M) 🥈 Roblox (19M) 🥉 Subway Surfers (16M) • Downloads are estimated

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The most downloaded mobile apps in the world in November: 🥇 ChatGPT (45M) 🥈 TikTok (37M) 🥉 Instagram (25M) • Downloads are estimated

The highest earning mobile apps in the world in November: 🥇 TikTok ($313M) 🥈 ChatGPT ($183M) 🥉 YouTube ($132M) • Revenue is estimated after store fees

💡 The most important change at X in 2025 wasn’t app revenue ↑48% YoY. It was shifting growth from Elon-driven spikes to product-led pull. That’s slower. And healthier.

📈 iOS app releases are the highest they've been in years. AI + vibe coding lowered the bar for entry. TikTok proved organic scale is reachable. Subs proved indie apps can pay rent. The downturn wasn’t demand-based. It was who could build and make it worthwhile.

🎧 Spotify and Apple grab headlines while the “other” music apps net an estimated $100M/month. Pandora, YouTube Music, Amazon, SoundCloud, Tidal—all up YoY. Discovery focus and pricing are doing the heavy lifting. Alternative streaming isn’t a niche anymore. It’s a trend line.

🔬 The paid app ecosystem still exists but its demise is accelerating. Releases down 50%. Only 138K are left. Just 3.6% of the stores. A single utility app out-earns them all in a long weekend. The numbers aren't in their favor. Hard to justify shipping one in 2026.

📈 Wild contrast right now. ChatGPT’s growth is flattening, but the entire AI category just hit an all time high on mobile. An estimated $206M net for the "Big 5" in one month. All five at personal bests. The race everyone thinks ChatGPT already won is anything but decided.

The most downloaded mobile games in the world in October: 🥇 Block Blast (20M) 🥈 Roblox (19M) 🥉 Subway Surfers (16M) * Downloads are estimated

The highest earning mobile games in the world in october: 🥇 Last War ($124M) 🥈 Royal Match ($121M) 🥉 Whiteout Survival ($114M) • Revenue is estimated after fees

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The most downloaded mobile apps in the world in October: 🥇 ChatGPT (43M) 🥈 TikTok (35M) 🥉 Gemini (34M) • Downloads are estimated

The highest earning apps in the world in October: 🥇 TikTok ($316M) 🥈 ChatGPT ($187M) 🥉 YouTube ($137M) * Revenue is estimated after fees

🔥 Funny how everyone stalks competitors but skips the data that actually matters. Our new App Intelligence brings together 15 reports to give you a full view into any app: ✅ Download and revenue (free) ✅ Custom product pages ✅ Audience age and gender demographics 👉 And more! fg.rs/app-intelli...

📊 Surprising to see the “OpenAI effect” barely move the revenue needle. Sora’s made an estimated $178K net, 19% less the top earning AI video generator in the same period. Low urgency to buy more video credits = zero signs of lift. Meanwhile, installs near 6.5M since launch.

Prestige shows didn’t move the mobile streamer revenue needle. Sports did. Reality did. Reruns did. Peacock bet on habit over hype. Revenue grew 25%. Now it's neck-and-neck with HBO's estimated consumer sending — for the first time ever. More here: appfigures.com/resources/i...

⚡️ Sega’s mascot is still outrunning the new kids. 🏅 Sonic Rumble’s launch has added an estimated 500K+ on top of 10M "Early Rumbler" installs. 360K on iOS alone. Revenue's ramping up. 📈 Already #7 out of 12+ mobile titles in a catalog nearing 1B est. downloads since 2017.

📉 🔪 Supercell kills most games *before* they even ship. It stuck with Brawl Stars and got a $2B+ hit. 💥 It stuck with Squad Busters and got a sunset. 🪦 Lifetime: 34.7M installs, $65M net. Revenue -96% YoY, downloads -88%. 😱 Sometimes endurance ≠ success.

👑 🔥 260M people playing one mobile game every month. That’s equivalent to 75% of the U.S. population — on a single title. Its name: Honor of Kings And it's already cleared $1.82B in 2025 (more than 2024). 🇨🇳 China still dominates spending, but 🇺🇸 U.S. momentum is real.

🫖 🔥 Two of the hottest dating apps on iOS just vanished overnight. Tea Dating Advice (6.1M installs, $3.4M IAP) and TeaOnHer (2.2M installs) — both gone from the App Store globally. Privacy leaks last summer didn’t kill them. Apple might have. 💔

🔥 One model update flipped the whole image-AI market. Late August: Adobe Firefly up +151% since July. Gemini barely +20%. Then Gemini dropped “Nano Banana" 🍌 Now Gemini’s +331% since July. 📈 Firefly’s down 68%. 📉 💡 In mobile AI, momentum can reverse overnight.

⚖️ Apples to apples, same store, same week-one window. Sora hit 96% of ChatGPT’s estimated U.S. iOS downloads. Gemini, Copilot, Grok? Not even close.

🤯 Invite-only and still outpacing ChatGPT’s launch. Sora pulled 627K iOS downloads in 7 days. That’s +21K over ChatGPT’s 2023 debut. Hype alone can move App Store charts.

Nintendo's Fire Emblem Shadows launch is trailing its predecessor's with an estimated 518K installs and $107K spent, or $0.21/download, in its 1st 10 days. 2017's Fire Emblem Heroes saw 2.3M (4.4x) est. installs and $5.3M (49x) spent in its 1st 10 days, for $2.31/download (11x).

Clash Royale released 9.5 years ago and Supercell's classic has made a huge turnaround. Largely due to its new-ish Merge Tactics mode, it has grossed $498M to date in 2025 — that's 190% or 2.2x its total at this point in 2024. Installs are also way up to 34M (+80% or 1.8x YoY).

It's 20 days since Destiny: Rising's mobile launch, so how's it doing? 1) It's been downloaded ⬇️ 2M times and made $6M net 💰 so far. 💸 2) Its last 7 days 💰 per install was $6.80, 136x its 1st week's $0.05. 🚀 3) Its total 💰 in last 7 days vs. 1st week = ⬆️ 56x. 🔥

Google Gemini is the #1 iPhone app in 106 countries, beating ChatGPT thanks to its impressive "nano banana" image model. Revenue is another story: ChatGPT wins there with $10/download (net) in the past 30 days on iOS, while Gemini's made just $0.15/download in the same timeframe.

Appfigures Intelligence data in the latest from @SarahPerezTC at @TechCrunch on Google Gemini's mobile app getting a huge boost from a nano 🍌 techcrunch.com/2025/09/16/...

What does the base storage bump from 128 GB to 256 GB on iPhone 17 mean for app hoarders? Factoring in iOS 26's footprint, the base iPhone 17 will store about 3.39K average sized (67.8 MB) non-game apps, or close to 1.73K more than the base iPhone 16's 1.67K, a 104% increase.

𝕏 broke into the top 10 most downloaded apps in the last 24 hours. It's #6 now in the US App Store across all apps and games

A crossover event between Brawl Stars and Subway Surfers is underway as both games seek to reverse negative growth in 2025. Subway Surfers revenue and downloads are -16.4% and -17.9% YoY, respectively. Brawl Stars is -55.7% and -33.3%, respectively. We'll be monitoring closely.

⏰ Going live in 20 minutes! Join @arielmichaeli for a Open Q&A. Bring your biggest app marketing questions and join the conversation! Don't miss out! 👉 fg.rs/ls61