In the three months to June, the average monthly download of DeepSeek’s chatbot fell 72 per cent to 22.6 million from the previous quarter, when the Hangzhou -based start-up benefited from the wide popularity of its V3 and R1 AI models, according to Monday’s report by market research firm QuestMobile in collaboration with state-funded newspaper National Business Daily.
While the chatbot’s monthly active users (MAUs) of 170 million still topped the mainland Chinese market, that number was down 9 per cent quarter on quarter.
DeepSeek’s chatbot was overtaken by ByteDance -owned Doubao , which posted average monthly downloads of 29.8 million in the second quarter, up 9.5 per cent from the previous three-month period, the QuestMobile report showed. Doubao’s MAUs grew 30 per cent to 130 million in the June quarter.
Some other popular general-purpose chatbots also saw their downloads decline in the second quarter, which reflected a shift in which consumer-facing AI apps are now more popular in China.
“This trend clearly shows that the phase of mere ‘chatbots’ is over,” the report said.