Claude consumer growth accelerates after Pentagon deal collapse
Claude's daily active users and new app installs are rising on mobile devices following the company's fallout with the Pentagon. After Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei refused to allow the government to use its AI systems for mass surveillance of Americans or to power fully autonomous weapons, the company behind Claude was flagged as a supply-chain risk.
Data suggests that Anthropic's stance has led many consumers to favor the model.
App intelligence provider Appfigures reports that U.S. downloads of Claude's mobile app continue to outpace those of ChatGPT. According to the company's estimates, the latest figures from March 2 show Claude with 149,000 daily downloads, compared to 124,000 for ChatGPT.

Image Credits:Appfigures
While download figures provide a snapshot of new users installing the app for the first time, active user numbers reveal how many people are actually using it.
On that front, another market intelligence provider, Similarweb, found that Claude's app on iOS and Android devices had 11.3 million daily active users on March 2, a 183% increase from the start of the year when usage was around 4 million, and up from 5 million daily active users at the beginning of February.
Claude's growth placed it ahead of other AI apps by daily active users, such as Perplexity and Microsoft Copilot, but still behind top rivals like ChatGPT. This is partly because Claude's usage spike began later in the month, coinciding with news of Anthropic's tense negotiations with the Pentagon. If these trends persist through March, it could move up in the rankings.

Image Credits:Similarweb
Of course, ChatGPT still dominates the market by a wide margin, with its daily active users on March 2 reaching 250.5 million across iOS and Android.
Similarweb also reports that Claude's web traffic has been increasing.
While Claude remains far behind other top AI providers in web traffic, its traffic grew 43% month-over-month in February and 297.7% year-over-year. At least some of this growth may have come at the expense of ChatGPT, whose web traffic dropped 6.5% month-over-month during the same period. Gemini also saw a modest increase of 2.1%, a slower growth rate than in previous months.

Image Credits:Similarweb
Anthropic itself has been highlighting Claude's progress, noting that its AI chatbot now sees more than 1 million sign-ups per day after becoming the No. 1 app on the U.S. App Store over the past weekend — a position it still holds. The app is also No. 1 in 15 other countries, including Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Singapore, Switzerland, and the U.K.
The company also noted that Claude has broken its own sign-up record every day since early last week in every country where it's available.
Meanwhile, an earlier report found that ChatGPT's app uninstalls have been growing.
Anthropic was asked for comment, but none was available at the time of publication.
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Claude's daily active users and new app installs are rising on mobile devices following the company's fallout with the Pentagon. After Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei refused to allow the government to use its AI systems for mass surveillance of Americans or to power fully autonomous weapons, the company behind Claude was flagged as a supply-chain risk.
Data suggests that Anthropic's stance has led many consumers to favor the model.
App intelligence provider Appfigures reports that U.S. downloads of Claude's mobile app continue to outpace those of ChatGPT. According to the company's estimates, the latest figures from March 2 show Claude with 149,000 daily downloads, compared to 124,000 for ChatGPT.

Image Credits:Appfigures
While download figures provide a snapshot of new users installing the app for the first time, active user numbers reveal how many people are actually using it.
On that front, another market intelligence provider, Similarweb, found that Claude's app on iOS and Android devices had 11.3 million daily active users on March 2, a 183% increase from the start of the year when usage was around 4 million, and up from 5 million daily active users at the beginning of February.
Claude's growth placed it ahead of other AI apps by daily active users, such as Perplexity and Microsoft Copilot, but still behind top rivals like ChatGPT. This is partly because Claude's usage spike began later in the month, coinciding with news of Anthropic's tense negotiations with the Pentagon. If these trends persist through March, it could move up in the rankings.

Image Credits:Similarweb
Of course, ChatGPT still dominates the market by a wide margin, with its daily active users on March 2 reaching 250.5 million across iOS and Android.
Similarweb also reports that Claude's web traffic has been increasing.
While Claude remains far behind other top AI providers in web traffic, its traffic grew 43% month-over-month in February and 297.7% year-over-year. At least some of this growth may have come at the expense of ChatGPT, whose web traffic dropped 6.5% month-over-month during the same period. Gemini also saw a modest increase of 2.1%, a slower growth rate than in previous months.

Image Credits:Similarweb
Anthropic itself has been highlighting Claude's progress, noting that its AI chatbot now sees more than 1 million sign-ups per day after becoming the No. 1 app on the U.S. App Store over the past weekend — a position it still holds. The app is also No. 1 in 15 other countries, including Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Singapore, Switzerland, and the U.K.
The company also noted that Claude has broken its own sign-up record every day since early last week in every country where it's available.
Meanwhile, an earlier report found that ChatGPT's app uninstalls have been growing.
Anthropic was asked for comment, but none was available at the time of publication.
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