Seek .(US:SKLTY) Hua Er Jie Jian Wen·2025-10-29 06:57Core Insights - The AI application market is experiencing significant polarization, with ByteDance's Doubao surpassing DeepSeek to become the dual champion in monthly active users and downloads [1][7][8] - Major tech companies are leveraging their vast resources to dominate the AI application landscape, posing challenges for startups to find unique value propositions [1][9][33] Monthly Active Users - Doubao achieved 159 million monthly active users in Q3 2025, a 22.2% increase from 130 million in Q2 [8][9] - DeepSeek's monthly active users fell by 14% to approximately 146 million, down from nearly 170 million in Q2 [8][9] - Tencent's Yuanbao maintained a steady performance with 30.9 million monthly active users, up 23.6% from 25 million [8][9] Monthly Downloads - Doubao's average monthly downloads reached 34.47 million, a 15.6% increase from 29.81 million in Q2 [8][9] - DeepSeek's downloads decreased by 7.9% to 20.80 million from 22.59 million [8][9] - Yuanbao's downloads grew by 40.9% to 8.70 million [8][9] Growth Leaders - Xiaoyunque saw a remarkable 246.1% increase in monthly active users, while its downloads surged by 102.5% [3][6][25] - Other notable growth apps include Duyin and AQ, which also experienced significant increases in user engagement [25][26] Declining Competitors - The "AI Four Little Giants" (Kimi, MiniMax, Zhiyu, and others) faced substantial declines, with Kimi's monthly active users dropping to 9.93 million, a decrease of about 30% [15][16][17] - MiniMax's monthly active users fell by 42.6%, and Zhiyu's decreased by 35.2% [15][16][20] Market Trends - The AI application market is shifting from broad-based competition to a focus on specific use cases and ecosystem integration [32][33] - The "AI + education" sector is cooling off, while "AI + healthcare" is emerging as a new growth area, with applications like AQ gaining traction [24][26][32] - The competitive landscape is increasingly favoring large tech companies, making it challenging for smaller firms to survive [33]