60+ DeepSeek AI Statistics to Know in 2025

OpenAI's ChatGPT has been the biggest name in AI chatbots since its launch in 2022. DeepSeek's release in January 2025 is taking the Internet by storm, making it a strong competitor of ChatGPT.

Since the public release of DeepSeek R1, the AI chatbot has attracted the attention of the masses worldwide, as indicated by the DeepSeek statistics. This is because DeepSeek is much more cost-efficient than the leading ChatGPT.

I've been writing about different AI tools for the past decade and have seen the popularity of AI chatbots grow after the launch of ChatGPT by OpenAI. With DeepSeek's launch, people are wondering if it can surpass ChatGPT.

I've spent weeks gathering 60+ DeepSeek statistics so you can get a better idea of where the AI chatbot stands and whether it can become the most popular in the near future.

DeepSeek History/Timeline

DeepSeek AI is a Chinese company that's known to build cost-effective and open-source LLMs, particularly for DeepSeek V3 and DeepSeek R1. Before I jump into the article, let me walk you through a quick timeline of how DeepSeek evolved from launch to now:

• December 2023: DeepSeek released the first open-source code-focused model (DeepSeek Coder).
• January 2024: DeepSeek released their reasoning model (DeepSeek R1), which was developed at a fraction of the cost of OpenAI.
• May 2024: DeepSeek released its second version (DeepSeek V2), which majorly focused on strong performance and lower training costs.
• July 2024: DeepSeek Coder V2 released the open-source Mixture of Experts (MoE) code language model.
• September 2024: DeepSeek-V2.5, a combination of DeepSeek-0628 and DeepSeek Coder V2 0724, was released.
• December 2024: DeepSeek V2.5, with Internet Search for real-time answers, was released at the end of 2024, and DeepSeek V3 was introduced at the same time.
• January 2025: In early 2025, DeepSeek R1 and the DeepSeek App for Android and iOS were released.
• March 2025: DeepSeek V3 0324, with stronger front-end development skills, was released in March 2025.

DeepSeek AI Users & Demographics Statistics

DeepSeek has gained significant traction among users due to its low-cost, high-performance models compared to other AI chatbots like ChatGPT. Despite being built with a limited budget, DeepSeek is as powerful as OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Let's check how many people are using DeepSeek:

1. In just three weeks after the launch, DeepSeek managed to hit 20 million daily users, with 66.12% being male and 33.88% being female (Statista).

2. As of mid-February 2025, DeepSeek (the Chinese AI Chatbot) had around 47 million daily active users (Statista).

3. Around 33.51% of DeepSeek visitors were between 25 and 34 years old.
At the end of January 2025, DeepSeek recorded a spike in web traffic. This happened after media reports highlighted the company's affordable and efficient LLM (Large Language Model)(Statista).

• Nearly 23.65% of young Internet users between 18 and 24 years old exhibited a strong enthusiasm for DeepSeek.
• Around 33.51% of visitors were aged between 25 and 34 years, and 19.34% were between 35 and 44 years.
• 12.15% of DeepSeek visitors were between 45 and 54 years old, with a small portion of 7.02% being 55 - 64 years old.

4. DeepSeek is most popular among males, accounting for around 60.25%.
According to SimilarWeb's March 2025 data, 60.25% of DeepSeek's audience is male and 39.75% female. When I looked into the demographics, one detail that stood out to me was how strongly DeepSeek has resonated with users under 30. In fact, according to the same report, the AI chatbot is most popular among those aged 25 and 34, representing 29.12%, followed by 26.56% aged between 18 and 24.

DeepSeek AI Growth Statistics

DeepSeek R1 is open-source and free to use for users. According to Exploding Topics data, interest in the Chinese AI company DeepSeek has increased by 99x in just three months after the release of their latest model and chatbot app (Exploding Topics).

A 2025 report by First Page Sage indicates DeepSeek holds a 0.70% share of the Generative AI chatbot market. While this figure is modest compared to industry leaders like ChatGPT (59.70%) and Gemini (13.50%), it reflects a growing presence for DeepSeek in an increasingly competitive space.

DeepSeek App Downloads Statistics

On January 15, 2025, DeepSeek released the DeepSeek App, powered by DeepSeek V3 for Android and iOS devices. Let's check the DeepSeek App download statistics to check its popularity:

1. According to AppFigures estimates, DeepSeek's free app was downloaded over a million times from the App Store and Google Play from January 15 to January 24.
2. Since its release, DeepSeek has been downloaded more than 10 million times on the Google Play Store till May 2025 (Google Play Store).
3. On January 30, 2025, HuggingFace reported that DeepSeek models have 5+ million downloads on the platform.

DeepSeek Website Traffic Statistics

The web traffic of DeepSeek has been increasing since the launch of the latest model, DeepSeek R1. Let's check what the DeepSeek statistics indicate about the AI chatbot's popularity:

1. In January 2025, DeepSeek.com attracted nearly 278 million visits, with males accounting for over two-thirds.
The web traffic of Deepseek.com increased to 278 million visits in January 2025, compared to just 12 million visits in the previous month. As I reviewed the Statista data, I was struck by how much of DeepSeek’s desktop traffic was concentrated in China and the US — a combined share of nearly 35%. It highlights where the platform’s strongest footholds currently lie.

• Nearly 24.42% of desktop traffic came from the company's home country (China), whereas 10.6% was from the United States.
• Brazil accounted for 5.35% of the total desktop traffic, and India for 4.08%.
• Germany also had a small share of the total desktop traffic, around 3.05%.

2. Nearly 1.3 million users visited DeepSeek AI in March 2025.
According to the latest available data by SimilarWeb, DeepSeek AI received 1.3 million visits in March 2025, which is higher than the 1 million visits it received in February 2025. These statistics indicate a steady increase in the popularity of DeepSeek.

3. In March 2025, the United States was the top country, sending around 21.93% of desktop traffic to DeepSeek AI.
According to SimilarWeb's March 2025 data, the US not only led traffic but did so by a wide margin, with India emerging as a strong second. It suggests that DeepSeek is gaining serious traction in both Western and South Asian tech ecosystems.

• In March 2025, over 20% of DeepSeek's website traffic came from the United States.
• India was second to the United States, sending 12.43% of traffic to DeepSeek AI.
• The United Kingdom accounted for 5.81%, with Canada accounting for 4.75%.

DeepSeek Competitor & Comparison

DeepSeek is just one of the AI chatbots available in the market, but not all of them are the same. DeepSeek is an open-source reasoning model known for its impressive problem-solving abilities comparable to OpenAI's o3 series. I spent time checking how the newly launched DeepSeek measures up with popular AI chatbots like ChatGPT and Google Gemini — and here are the statistics:

1. DeepSeek R1 matches or sometimes exceeds OpenAI's performance.
DeepSeek and OpenAI models have similar features, but the level of accuracy and performance varies. According to the data from Arxiv research, DeepSeek R1 matches or sometimes exceeds OpenAI's performance in mathematical reasoning tasks. Here's a table revealing the benchmark performance of DeepSeek R1 and OpenAI-o1-1217:

2. As of January 2025, DeepSeek received 17.59 million downloads.
In January 2025, Statista's reports revealed that ChatGPT was the most downloaded Generative AI mobile app worldwide, with more than 40.52 million downloads. DeepSeek ranked second, with 17.59 million downloads, while DeepSeek's domestic version for the Chinese market acquired the fifth position and added 7.8 million downloads.

Here's a table revealing the most downloaded Generative AI mobile apps worldwide based on the number of downloads:

3. Chinese-developed DeepSeek generated around 1.52 million downloads during its first 10 days from launch.
According to Statista, ChatGPT was the generative AI mobile app that received the largest number of downloads in the first 10 days of launch. The OpenAI app (launched on November 30, 2023) generated around 7.4 million downloads within the first 10 days. In comparison, DeepSeek, which launched globally on January 15, 2025, generated only 1.52 million downloads in the 10 days from launch.

DeepSeek Banned Country/Region

DeepSeek, launched in January 2025, managed to gather the attention of users just like its competitor, OpenAI's ChatGPT. But the rapid rise has not been without controversy.

According to DeepSeek's privacy policy, the app collects personal data like email addresses, phone numbers, chat history, and technical details about the user's device. That's why many countries have banned DeepSeek.

While South Korea initially banned DeepSeek, the Chinese AI service has become available again in South Korean app markets (Reuters). However, there are a lot of countries that have still banned DeepSeek, the Chinese-developed AI model:

1. Italy: Italy was one of the first countries to ban DeepSeek AI. The Italian DPA is awaiting a response to its data collection-related concerns sent to the company (Italian Data Protection Authority).
2. USA: In the USA, Pentagon officials, NASA, the US Navy, and the US Congress have banned the use of DeepSeek. In fact, Texas was the first US state to ban DeepSeek (CNBC).
3. Australia: Like the USA, the Australian government has mandated that all government employees not use any DeepSeek-related products via websites or mobile apps (Queensland Government).
4. Taiwan: Taiwan's Ministry of Digital Affairs has also banned government agencies, state-owned businesses, and public schools from using DeepSeek. The decision is based on concerns about cross-border data transmission and information leaks (Radio Free Asia).

In fact, an ABC News report suggests that DeepSeek has code hidden in its programming that can send user data to the Chinese government (ABC News).

FAQs

Is DeepSeek better than ChatGPT?
The choice between the AI chatbots will depend on the specific needs. In general, DeepSeek performs technical tasks better, such as coding. On the other hand, ChatGPT is a versatile general-purpose AI that offers human-like conversations.

Why is DeepSeek so cheap?
DeepSeek is cheaper than competitors like OpenAI because of its efficient architecture and training methods. It uses a Mixture of Experts (MoE) approach, which means only relevant parts of the model are activated during inference.

Is DeepSeek AI safe?
While DeepSeek AI is generally safe to use, it collects users' personal data, such as account personal data, user input, device and network data, etc. Many countries have banned DeepSeek after understanding the risks associated with the AI chatbot.

Conclusion

DeepSeek R1 is an AI reasoning model built by DeepSeek (a Chinese company). It's a lot like OpenAI o1 and o3-mini, but DeepSeek is a very capable alternative to o1 and o3-mini. These 60+ DeepSeek statistics shed light on why the AI chatbot is a strong contender for ChatGPT. If your aim is to use an AI chatbot for personal or professional reasons, you might need to keep in mind that the Chinese-developed chatbot has some privacy issues.