Privacy Concerns Can’t Stop Meta Muse’s Top 10M Downloads

Meta’s Muse app has achieved a significant milestone by reaching 10 million US downloads within just 40 days, surpassing its competitors in user retention, as per a recent report from Sensor Tower (via 9to5Mac).

Despite growing concerns about privacy, Meta Muse continues to expand its user base, thanks in part to Meta’s extensive advertising campaign driving the app’s popularity. The report reveals that the app accounted for 39% of Meta’s advertising expenditure in the US this month, a significant increase from 23% in September.

Having dominated the US App Store charts for 12 consecutive days before dropping to second place, Meta Muse reached the 5 million US download mark on September 30, achieving this milestone much faster than ChatGPT, Grok, and Claude, which took 56, 103, and 492 days respectively, according to Sensor Tower.

Sensor Tower’s data shows that Muse is only the 12th app to reach the 10 million US download milestone within 40 days since the firm began tracking such statistics in October 2015. In comparison, ChatGPT, Grok, and Claude had significantly lower user levels in their first 40 days of availability, with 3.7 million, 500,000, and 200,000 US downloads respectively.

Interestingly, Sensor Tower also mentions that ChatGPT saw a global download surge to approximately 15 million within its initial 40 days post-launch, with top regions including the US, Japan, Brazil, and Germany accounting for significant portions of the downloads.

While ChatGPT remains the fourth most downloaded free app on the US App Store, its US download numbers have declined by 25% over the past 30 days. Meanwhile, Claude ranks seventh and Grok thirty-fourth in download rankings.

Although Sensor Tower did not provide an exhaustive list of the other 11 apps that achieved 10 million US downloads in 40 days, it highlighted that nine of them were mobile games. The last non-game app to achieve this feat before Muse was Meta’s social networking platform Threads back in July 2023, with Disney+ likely being the other non-game app hitting the milestone shortly after its November 2019 launch.

Despite its rapid success, Muse faces privacy concerns, with recent reports from Ars Technica revealing potential vulnerabilities that could expose sensitive personal and business information shared within the app. In response, Meta has temporarily disabled the sharing feature to investigate the issue.

Security researchers from Claroc discovered that Muse’s shareable URLs inadvertently disclosed users’ private conversations, leading to the exposure of confidential information such as loan applications, bank alerts, staff calendars, and internal revenue reviews.

While security concerns persist, Muse continues to outshine its competitors in user retention, with US users displaying a 30% average retention rate after 7 days and 23% after 14 days, surpassing AI competitors like ChatGPT, Claude, and Grok in both 7-day and 14-day retention rates.