In Korea, OpenAI's generative artificial intelligence (AI) ChatGPT is establishing itself as a service that cannot be replaced. The gap with Google's Gemini is narrowing quickly in the global market, but in Korea, usage patterns centered on ChatGPT have solidified, keeping it in the lead.
According to the app analytics platform Mobile Index on Feb. 4, ChatGPT's monthly active users (MAU) in Korea stood at 14,299,545 as of January this year. That is about a 277-fold increase in two and a half years compared with 51,552 on July 2023, when the mobile service launched. ChatGPT's MAU hovered around 1 million through the first half of 2024, but began a sharp climb in the second half, surpassing 13.84 million in December last year and 14 million in January this year.
In particular, the growth curve steepened sharply starting in April last year. After more than doubling in a month from 5.09 million in March to 10.72 million in April, it stayed steadily in the 10 million range from May to July, then resumed its upward trend in the second half. The analysis is that it has become a tool used across everyday tasks beyond simple Q&A, including document writing, translation, study assistance, and coding.
The gap with competing services is also evident in the numbers. Google Gemini's MAU in Korea totaled 123,647 in January this year. It grew about 17-fold in a year from 7,240 in January last year, but in absolute size it is hard to compare with ChatGPT. During the same period, ChatGPT's MAU expanded from the 3 million range to the 14 million range.
Grok from xAI, led by Elon Musk, is also securing a certain level of users in Korea. Grok's MAU in Korea started at 72,809 in March last year and rose to 721,293 in January this year. Its lower level of moderation and direct answers spread quickly by word of mouth among users. However, the gap with ChatGPT still exceeds 20 times, and there is an assessment that it remains more of a supplementary tool than a flagship service.
The industry interprets this trend as a structural characteristic of the Korean market. In the global market, Gemini, integrated with the Google ecosystem, is catching up quickly and forming a two-horse race, but in Korea, the analysis is that ChatGPT was the first to achieve mass adoption and gained a first-mover advantage.
According to Sensor Tower and Similarweb, as of the end of last year, ChatGPT's global monthly active users (MAU) were about 810 million, while Gemini's were around 650 million, narrowing the gap to 1.25 times. Quarterly growth was 5% for ChatGPT, compared with 30% for Gemini. In web traffic share, ChatGPT declined while Gemini surged.
However, this trend has not extended to the Korean market. Even though Google is integrating Gemini across its services such as Android, Gmail, and Docs, and deploying aggressive discounts and bundling, many domestic users are still forming AI usage patterns centered on ChatGPT.
The industry points to the so-called lock-in effect as the reason ChatGPT maintains an unusually strong influence in the Korean market. Korean users have already learned prompts tailored to ChatGPT, and key workflows such as document writing, translation, and coding are built on ChatGPT, so the psychological and physical expense of moving to competing services is high.
Choi Byung-ho, a research professor at the Korea University Human-inspired AI Research Institute, said, "In Korea, 'ChatGPT' is perceived almost like a proper noun," and noted, "When casual users use AI lightly, they tend not to bother seeking out other services and instead continue using the widely known tool." He added, "Even if they hear that another service has improved its performance, unless there is a clear reason to change from a familiar tool, they do not easily change their usage patterns."