April 7, 2026 ChatGPT has lost market share in the U.S. mobile chatbot market for four consecutive months, dropping below 40% of daily active users in March. The decline comes as competitors, particularly Claude, gain traction, with Claude jumping to 10 per cent share from under 2 per cent just three months earlier.
The shift marks a clear change from late 2025, when ChatGPT held more than 50 per cent of daily user share. According to Apptopia data, the broader chatbot market is still growing, but that growth is now being driven by competitors taking share rather than ChatGPT expanding its lead.
Claude’s growth stands out not just for its speed, but for how users are engaging with it. Power users are now spending an average of 139 minutes per day in the app, up from 98 minutes in February, while churn among those users has dropped to 12%. Apptopia described the surge as a “step function,” highlighting both rapid adoption and deeper usage.
Other players are holding steady. Gemini accounted for 25 per cent of daily active user share in March, while Copilot remained at 10 per cent for the third straight month. Grok declined slightly to 13.5 per cent, and Perplexity edged down to 2.1 per cent.
Meanwhile, DeepSeek has largely disappeared from the U.S. mobile market, falling to around 1 per cent share. The data suggests that while new entrants can scale quickly, maintaining momentum remains a challenge.
Overall market growth remains positive. Apptopia reported that the generative AI chatbot market grew 5 per cent from February to March and 22 per cent since September. However, the distribution of that growth is shifting, with newer entrants capturing a larger portion of user activity.
The result is a more competitive landscape than just a few months ago. ChatGPT still leads, but its share is no longer expanding, and rivals are starting to build both scale and engagement at the same time.
