Annual users of ChatGPT worldwide are expected to grown considerably in the coming months. In 2022, around 57 million people used ChatGPT, with this number increasing to roughly 100 million by January 2023.

In January 2024, ChatGPT online domain chat.openai.com registered over 19.4 percent of its traffic as originating in the United States. Users based in Indonesia generated approximately 11.7 percent of the total visits to the chatbot platform, while users in Indonesia accounted for 6.3 percent of the total visits to the website. Visits from Brazil represented the fourth-largest group for the platform, generating more than five percent of the total traffic recorded in the examined period.

As of December 2024, microblogging and social platform Threads was the fastest app to reach 50 million monthly active users (MAU) worldwide, as the apps took less than a month to reach the milestone. ByteDance-owned CapCut ranked second, as the app took four months to reach over 50 million global MAU. App ChatGPT ranked third, with the revolutionary generative AI application taking only five months to reach 50 million MAU worldwide.

In November 2024, Taobao, the Chinese e-commerce platform operated by Alibaba Group, led the shopping apps in China with nearly 650 million monthly active users. Meanwhile, Xiaomi's self-operated store Mi Life acquired over 2.5 million active users.

Many Chinese fans of anime and manga adore Bilibili, the top-rated video streaming platform. The first quarter of 2024 saw the Chinese platform's average monthly active users rebound to 341.5 million, increasing from the previous quarter. Creating values from an engaged community Launched in Shanghai in 2009, Bilibili targets online video users from the ACG (Anime, Comic, and Gaming) subculture. Special features like bullet chats and virtual gifting help foster real-time user interactions and a supportive creator-fan dynamic. This reflects entirely on its earnings: 40 percent of its net revenue in 2022 was derived from valued-added services, which fueled by sales of virtual items. Other business segments Beyond video streaming, Bilibili is also a prominent player in the Chinese gaming scene. A 2023 survey by Statista Consumer Insights found that Bilibili was the most used video gaming site by brands in China. The company is not solely present in its home country. Globally, Bilibili’s in-app purchase revenue was estimated at 178 million U.S. dollars in 2023.

As of January 2025, online search engine Bing accounted for 12.23 percent of the global desktop search market, while market leader Google had a share of around 78.83 percent. Meanwhile, Yahoo's market share was 3.07 percent. Google in the global market Ever since the introduction of Google Search in 1997, the company has dominated the search engine market, while the shares of all other tools has been rather lopsided. The majority of Google revenues are generated through advertising. Its parent corporation, Alphabet, was one of the biggest internet companies worldwide as of 2023, with a market capitalization of 1,6 trillion U.S. dollars. The company has also expanded its services to mail, productivity tools, enterprise products, mobile devices, and other ventures. As a result, Google earned one of the highest tech company revenues in 2023 with roughly 305.6 billion U.S. dollars. Search engine usage in different countries Google is the most frequently used search engine worldwide. But in some countries, its’ alternatives are leading or competing with it to some extent. As of the last quarter of 2023, more than 63 percent of internet users in Russia used Yandex, whereas Google users were nearly 36 percent. Meanwhile, Baidu was the most used search engine in China, despite a strong percentage decrease of internet users in the country accessing it. In other countries, like Japan and Mexico, people tend to use Yahoo along with Google. In the first quarter of 2022 nearly 56 percent of the respondents in Japan said that they had used Yahoo in the past four weeks. In the same year, over 27 percent of users in Mexico said they used Yahoo. Another search engine, Bing, operated by Microsoft, was the second most popular search engine in the United Kingdom after Google.

In November 2024, Google.com was the most popular website worldwide with 136 billion average monthly visits. The online platform has held the top spot as the most popular website since June 2010, when it pulled ahead of Yahoo into first place. Second-ranked YouTube generated more than 72.8 billion monthly visits in the measured period. The internet leaders: search, social, and e-commerce Social networks, search engines, and e-commerce websites shape the online experience as we know it. While Google leads the global online search market by far, YouTube and Facebook have become the world’s most popular websites for user generated content, solidifying Alphabet’s and Meta’s leadership over the online landscape. Meanwhile, websites such as Amazon and eBay generate millions in profits from the sale and distribution of goods, making the e-market sector an integral part of the global retail scene. What is next for online content? Powering social media and websites like Reddit and Wikipedia, user-generated content keeps moving the internet’s engines. However, the rise of generative artificial intelligence will bring significant changes to how online content is produced and handled. ChatGPT is already transforming how online search is performed, and news of Google's 2024 deal for licensing Reddit content to train large language models (LLMs) signal that the internet is likely to go through a new revolution. While AI's impact on the online market might bring both opportunities and challenges, effective content management will remain crucial for profitability on the web.