(Yicai) Jan. 20 -- The number of monthly active users of artificial intelligence applications in China exceeded 100 million last November, with more than half using ByteDance's ChatGPT-like conversational bot Doubao.

Doubao, launched by the Chinese owner of TikTok in August 2023, had 56 million MAUs as of Nov. 30, more than doubling from 27.5 million at the end of June, according to data research firm QuestMobile released last week.

Kimi, a chatbot developed by Beijing-based Moonshot AI, ranked second with around 22 million MAUs in November, up from 4.6 million in June. Baidu's Ernie Bot saw the figure remain unchanged at about 10 million to take the third spot.

The number of MAUs of AI apps in China doubled over the five months ended Nov. 30, Chen Yan, research director of QuestMobile, told Yicai. Although the data for last month is still being compiled, the growth is expected to be sustained, Chen added.

ByteDance and Baidu have rich product matrices, bringing huge advantages to their AI app development, with the MAUs of TikTok exceeding 700 million and of Baidu's search engine 600 million, Chen pointed out. These users are likelier to use Doubao and Ernie Bot than other AI apps, Chen said.

Other Chinese AI apps have faced hurdles over the period, with Kunlun Tech's Tiangong seeing the ranks of MAUs drop to around 4 million in November from 5.6 million in June, while some smaller apps have been phased out.

Based on the experience with phone apps over the past decade, users tend to prioritize head apps, Chen said, but added that there could be dark horses.

Established in 2023, Alibaba Group Holding-backed Moonshot AI has raised more than USD1 billion.

Editor: Martin Kadiev