Qwen's monthly active users surged 5077% year-over-year, topping the growth chart among apps with over 100 million users, but the figure fell by 9 million users compared to June.

Beating AI News Flash: QuestMobile's latest rankings show that in September 2026, the Qwen App reached 158 million monthly active users, a year-over-year increase of 5,077%, ranking first in growth rate among apps with over 100 million MAU. On the domestic AI-native app list, Qwen ranks second, surpassing DeepSeek's 123 million, but still far behind the leader Doubao's 419 million.

Behind this growth wave is Alibaba's large-scale promotion. Last November, the Tongyi App was renamed Qwen. This Spring Festival, Alibaba announced a 3 billion yuan investment to launch a free-order campaign, letting users directly order milk tea and food delivery through AI. Campaign links once flooded WeChat groups, and the system even experienced lag due to a surge in traffic. QuestMobile data shows that on the first day of the campaign, Qwen's daily active users soared from about 7.06 million to 58.48 million.

However, the 5,077% growth rate was also affected by last year's low base. Back-calculating from the year-over-year data, Qwen's MAU in September last year was only about 3.05 million. In March this year, Qwen's MAU had already reached 166 million, rising to 167 million in June, but in September it fell back to 158 million, down about 5.4% from June.