The number of active monthly users of the commission-free trading app Robinhood grew steadily since 2014, even though the app did not officially launch until mid-2015. The number of users grew from half a million in 2014 up to 17.3 reaching a peak in 2021. While the number of active monthly users now rests at under 11 million, the Average Revenue Per Users (ARPU) has increased. The app’s net revenue did also grow steadily since its official launch, reaching 471 million U.S. dollars as of 2023. Robinhood and the GameStop story Robinhood was a key player in the GameStop story in January 2021, when they restricted the trading of GameStop stocks for a few days. The platform with its commission-free trading is known to be "for the young and poor" and their trading halt caused a lot of anger among its users, who called it market manipulation and claimed the company was helping the hedge funds. Did the GameStop story affect the number of downloads? The number of downloads of the Robinhood app increased markedly in April 2021. The number of downloads grew by almost five times compared to the previous month, reaching around 3.23 million downloads from Google Play Store and Apple App Store in April 2021. This increase show that the app had a central role for the GameStop stocks, where young investors saw an opportunity to make money with commission-free trades.

Based on monthly active users, Robinhood is by far the most popular eTrading app in the world. As of July 2021, there were over 7.3 million Robinhood users - over double the users of second-placed WeBull. User numbers spiked in early 2021, reaching a peak of over nine million in May 2021. The timing of this spike in popularity is likely influenced by the media attention paid to retail investors, generally using eTrading apps, coordinating their activity via social media to drive up the stock price of companies such as GameStop and AMC Entertainment.

Based on monthly active users, Robinhood is by far the most popular eTrading app in the United States. As of July 2021, there were over 7.3 million Robinhood users - more than three times the users of second-placed WeBull. User numbers spiked in early 2021, reaching a peak of over nine million in May 2021. The timing of this spike in popularity is likely influenced by the media attention paid to retail investors, generally using eTrading apps, coordinating their activity via social media to drive up the stock price of companies such as GameStop and AMC Entertainment.

Downloads of the trading app Robinhood grew over five times between December 2020 and January 2021, according to Google Play Store and Apple App Store figures. The number grew from around 651,000 downloads in December 2020 up to around 3.29 million downloads in January 2021. The reason for the increased number of downloads was that the app played a central role in the GameStop story in January 2021, where young investors saw an opportunity to make money on the GameStop stocks with commission-free trades via the Robinhood platform. Popularity of Robinhood Investors' viewpoints are increasingly turning toward the utilization of technology when investing as the majority of wealth management clients worldwide agreed technology has improved investing decision making and allowed for higher efficiency and reduced costs. Robinhood's ease of accessibility to investors and low-cost business model are contributing factors that allowed them to previously outperformed other leading trading apps in the number of monthly active users on their platform. The future of online trading The total net revenue of Robinhood has continued to increase with a large spike in the fourth quarter of 2020. Despite events such as the GameStop story passing, Robinhood`s revenue has continued to grow. Many traditional asset management firms are also beginning to implement technology in their business operations as the technological move becomes more prominent. The global online trading market is forecast to continue to increase in value in the coming years, leaving opportunity for online trading platforms like Robinhood to expand.

In 2022, Robinhood, probably the most well-known online trading platform and neobroker worldwide, had 23 million net cumulative funded accounts, with 11.4 million active users on average. Robinhood users committed approximately 62 billion U.S. dollars to invest on the trading app.

Like several other app industries, stock trading and investment saw a huge spike in usage during the coronavirus pandemic. Millions of people stuck at home were able to take advantage of new...

Users between 35 and 44 were more active on Robinhood than they were on crypto traders or top stock brokers. The number of users of the commission-free trading app nearly doubled in 2021. Younger users, however, were more active on cryptocurrency exchanges than on Robinhood or the websites of traditional brokers. Coinbase ranked as one of the United States' most popular crypto exchanges in 2022 - although Robinhood was also used for such ends.

In 2024, Cash App dominated the U.S. banking app landscape, with nearly 7.5 million monthly active users. This was substantially higher than its closest competitors, Robinhood and Chime, which each maintained roughly 2.5 million monthly active users.

Higher income groups visited Robinhood and cryptocurrency exchanges more frequently than users with a lower household income. Because of this increase in visits per user as income increases - especially among those above 125,000 U.S. dollars - the source believes Robinhood’s offering on zero commission trades could potentially be interesting for users with greater savings and who are exploring active investing. Indeed, the number of users of the commission-free trading app nearly doubled in 2021. The source does not elaborate on the crypto markets, although there are known stories of so-called "whales" - large investors who buy crypto in such high quantities it may offset the price of a particular coin. These whales tend to be companies that deliberately hold on to specific cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin.

As of 2023, the discount online stock broker in the United States with the most brokerage accounts was Fidelity, who recorded around 33.2 million accounts. Of the solely online platforms, the largest was Robinhood, in third place with 13 million accounts. Note that, according to the source, not all brokers disclose the number of accounts they have, meaning that some of these figures are 'guesstimates'.