ChatGPT's mobile app just had its best month ever - why people keep flocking to it

The ChatGPT mobile surge is still in full effect.

Back in May, we reported how users were flocking to the mobile app version of ChatGPT, primarily because of the introduction of a new model, GPT-4o, that introduces faster performance, multimodal capabilities, and a new voice mode.

People are still flocking to the app, as it pulled in $28 million in revenue in July – its best month ever.

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The data comes from appfigures, which reported that the number is actually after the Google Play Store and Apple App Store take their fees. Before fees, ChatGPT's take was $39.9 million. Figuring in a price of $19.99 a month, that works out to right at 2,000,000 paid subscribers.

Appfigures points out that revenue for ChatGPT was already growing well this year, but GPT-4o in May caused a 40% jump. While the GPT-4o model was made available to all users, even free ones, it wasn't free on the app version, leading to a spike in subscriptions. The app hasn't reached that percentage jump since, but growth has still been quite strong.

Interestingly, the vast majority of ChatGPT mobile users have Apple devices. Appfigures data shows that the App Store made up 83% of the app's revenue, a number that was up 20% from the prior month.

Earlier this year, OpenAI teased a new advanced voice mode that offers more realistic interactions. The mode was set to roll out in June, but the company said it needed more time to improve the model's ability to detect and refuse certain content and to prepare its infrastructure to scale while maintaining real-time responses. 

OpenAI still hasn't deployed it fully. It's only available to a small group of ChatGPT Plus users. 

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The new voice mode can understand and respond with emotions and non-verbal cues, OpenAI says, making the experience even more like a natural human conversation. When that new mode fully rolls out, you have to imagine the number of subscribers will increase even more.