Tencent AI Chatbot Tops iPhone App Downloads in China, Surpassing DeepSeek

Tencent AI Chatbot Yuanbao Logo. Photo by Tencent

China's big tech company Tencent's artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot 'Yuanbao' has surpassed DeepSeek to become the most downloaded iPhone application in China this week.

According to a Bloomberg report on the 4th, among the top 5 most downloaded free iPhone apps this week, three are AI bots, with Yuanbao ranking first, followed by DeepSeek and ByteDance's Doubao in second and third places, respectively.

Yuanbao is a service that integrates Tencent's self-developed AI technology Xunyuan with DeepSeek's R1 inference model. Bloomberg noted that the DeepSeek craze, which began at the end of January, is revitalizing China's technology and internet ecosystem.

Ahead of the Lianghui (兩會; National People's Congress and Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference), Chinese smartphone brand Honor, which separated from Huawei, announced it will invest $10 billion (approximately 14.6 trillion KRW) in AI over the next five years.

Additionally, following Alibaba's issuance of $5 billion (approximately 7.3 trillion KRW) worth of dollar and yuan bonds last November, Baidu, China's largest search portal company, is also planning to issue offshore bonds worth 10 billion yuan (approximately 2 trillion KRW).

However, Bloomberg pointed out that doubts remain about the potential for profit generation, as AI technologies, led by DeepSeek, continue to be released in open-source forms.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.