Tencent Holdings’ AI chatbot, Yuanbao, has emerged as the most downloaded free app in China’s iOS App Store, surpassing DeepSeek, according to rankings released on Mar. 3.

This achievement follows Yuanbao’s launch in May 2024.

Yuanbao’s rise in popularity is attributed to Tencent’s integration of DeepSeek’s R1 reasoning model in February, which improved the chatbot’s capabilities.

The addition of a download button for Yuanbao in Tencent’s WeChat app, which has 1.3 billion users, likely spurred its download increase.

Data from AI application tracker AIcpb.com indicates that daily active users of Yuanbao reached 3 million by late February, a significant jump from earlier figures in the hundreds of thousands.

Recent Tencent developments