Last Saturday evening local time, Claude surpassed OpenAI ChatGPT to take the top spot in the free app ranking on the Apple App Store in the US and maintained this position until Sunday morning.
Data from Sensor Tower Mobile Application Market Data Analysis Company also shows that the growth momentum of this application has been very fast in recent days.
At the end of January, Claude was even outside the top 100 free apps in the US. For most of February, this app fluctuated in the top 20.
However, in just the past week, Claude has accelerated strongly from sixth place on Wednesday, climbed to fourth place on Thursday and occupied first place on Saturday.
Anthropic spokesman said the number of new subscriptions per day this week has reached the highest level ever. The number of free users increased by more than 60% compared to January, while the number of paid subscribers has more than doubled since the beginning of the year.
The growth momentum took place after Anthropic publicly disagreed with the Pentagon on the provision for the use of AI in defense.
The company seeks to include protection measures to prevent its technology from being used for large-scale domestic surveillance or fully automated weapons.
After that, President Donald Trump directed federal agencies to stop using Anthropic's products. US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth also announced consideration of classifying the company as "supply chain risk".
Meanwhile, CEO Sam Altman announced that OpenAI has reached a separate agreement with the Pentagon, including protection measures related to domestic surveillance and automated weapons.
Observers believe that media attention around this dispute may have helped Claude attract more users, turning a policy crisis into an unexpected growth boost.
