Anthropic's Claude sees tepid reception on iOS compared with ChatGPT's debut

Sarah Perez
Updated ·3 min read

Consumer demand for mobile AI chatbot apps outside of ChatGPT may be waning. Earlier this month, Anthropic launched its first mobile app on iOS, providing access to its Claude 3 model for both free and paid users. Though the app offers the same functionality as its web version, as well as history sync and photo upload capabilities, it only pulled in 157,000 total global downloads in its first week on the market. Compare that with ChatGPT, which saw 480,000 installs in the first five days of its U.S. launch, when its app was also iOS-only.

Unlike ChatGPT, Claude did not become a new App Store hit. While ChatGPT's app soared to the top of the App Store, becoming one of the highest-performing new releases of 2023 (and the year prior!), Claude's reception has so far been much more tepid.

According to data from app intelligence firm Appfigures, the highest rank Claude achieved among Apple's top free iPhone apps in the U.S. was No. 55 on May 4, a few days after its debut on the first of the month. As of Friday, the app no longer ranks within the top free iPhone apps in the U.S. Instead, it now ranks No. 51 in the top free Productivity apps in the U.S., down from the No. 5 rank in this category, which it had also achieved on May 4.

For comparison, Claude earned a rank of No. 50 on the Productivity chart seven days after its release. But seven days after ChatGPT's launch, it was already No. 3 Overall, as well as the No. 1 Productivity app.

Driving Claude's downloads are three key markets: the U.S., with a 50% share of Claude installs, followed by Japan and the U.K., at 11% and 8%, respectively. However, the data indicates that interest in the new AI app fell off steeply after Claude arrived, as downloads quickly dropped from five digits to four digits within a week after launch. The fall-off suggests there may not be the same level of consumer demand or brand recognition around this ChatGPT rival.

To be fair, ChatGPT launched at a time when the market was primed for an official AI companion.

Ahead of its arrival, other third-party apps had capitalized on consumers' growing interest in AI tools, labeling themselves "ChatGPT" or "AI chatbot" to trick users into thinking they were an official OpenAI product. While most of those apps were essentially fleeceware with expensive subscriptions to access their AI, the top apps still managed to pull in millions in consumer spending ahead of ChatGPT's App Store debut. The apps' existence also helped with the name recognition of the ChatGPT brand — something Anthropic's Claude lacks.

Claude also suffers from having more competition in the AI space than ChatGPT did when it initially launched on iOS. Since then, Google has infused AI across its product suite, including in its Assistant and iOS search app. It rebranded and upgraded its own AI chatbot Bard to Gemini. Meanwhile, aggregators like Quora's Poe let AI enthusiasts toy with ChatGPT, Claude and a range of other AI models in one place.