Qwen App active users reached 158 million in September 2026, surpassing DeepSeek but falling below DouBao.

ChainCatcher report: According to QuestMobile’s latest rankings, in September 2026, Alibaba’s AI app Qwen reached 158 million monthly active users, a year-over-year increase of 5,077%, ranking first in growth rate among all apps with over 100 million monthly active users. Among native Chinese AI apps, Qwen ranked second, surpassing DeepSeek’s 123 million but remaining below the top-ranked Doubao at 419 million. This growth is closely tied to Alibaba’s large-scale promotional efforts. In November last year, the Tongyi app was renamed Qwen. This year during the Spring Festival, Alibaba announced an investment of RMB 3 billion to launch a free-order campaign, allowing users to order bubble tea and food delivery via AI. The campaign link spread rapidly across WeChat groups, causing system slowdowns due to surging traffic. QuestMobile data shows that on the first day of the campaign, Qwen’s daily active users surged from approximately 7.06 million to 58.48 million. The 5,077% year-over-year growth was also influenced by a low base last year; backward calculation indicates Qwen had around 3.05 million monthly active users in September last year. This year, Qwen’s monthly active users reached 166 million in March and 167 million in June, before declining slightly to 158 million in September—a drop of about 9 million, or 5.4%, from June.