Alibaba Group Holding Limited (BABA) is making a serious run at the global AI throne, and the numbers are hard to ignore. The company's new Qwen app just posted the fastest monthly active user growth of any AI app worldwide, according to data that dropped Wednesday.
Here's what happened: Qwen clocked a 149% jump in monthly active users during November, rocketing to 18.34 million users and landing at number 24 on the global AI app popularity list. That's remarkable considering the app only entered public beta two weeks earlier, according to a report from SCMP.
The data comes from Aicpb.com, which tracks AI product adoption across the industry. Li Bangzhu, who founded the tracking site, said Qwen's meteoric rise reflects the underlying quality of Alibaba's large language models—the foundation that powers everything the app does.
What Makes Qwen Different
Qwen isn't just another chatbot. The app gives users access to a full suite of multimodal AI tools, from conducting deep research to generating images and creating presentation slides. All of it runs on Alibaba's Qwen family of foundational models, which the company has been developing as its answer to OpenAI's GPT and other leading AI systems.
The reception in Alibaba's home market has been particularly strong. Within days of launch, Qwen climbed into the top three trending free apps in Apple Inc.'s (AAPL) mainland China and Hong Kong app stores—a signal that Chinese users are eager for domestic AI alternatives.
How Qwen Stacks Up Against the Competition
Qwen's November growth demolished what its Chinese competitors managed. ByteDance's Doubao—currently China's largest AI app with 167.91 million monthly active users—grew a respectable 5.33%. DeepSeek's flagship app actually lost ground, with MAUs declining 3.72%.
Globally, OpenAI's ChatGPT still dominates with 775.57 million monthly active users, though its growth rate has cooled to below 1%. Alphabet Inc. (GOOGL) Google posted solid 16.17% MAU growth to reach 88.92 million users, helped by strong buzz around its Gemini 3 Pro model that launched November 18.
Stock Performance Reflects AI Momentum
Investors are clearly buying what Alibaba is building. The stock has gained over 90% year-to-date, driven by growing confidence in the company's cloud computing, e-commerce, and AI businesses.
Analysts have been sounding increasingly bullish notes on the stock. Goldman Sachs, Daiwa Securities, and China International Capital Corporation all pointed to accelerating Alibaba Cloud growth, stronger multimodal AI capabilities, and early profit recovery at Taobao and Tmall as reasons to be optimistic—even as U.S.–China tensions create uncertainty.
The AI Glasses Wild Card
There's another dimension to this AI race that's worth watching: smart glasses. Li from Aicpb.com noted that the latest data shows rising potential for AI-powered eyewear.
Meta View, the companion app for Meta Platforms Inc.'s (META) AI glasses, recorded the world's third-fastest MAU growth at 44.42%. That category is getting crowded fast as Chinese tech companies rush to compete with Meta's Ray-Ban Display glasses.
Alibaba jumped into the fray Thursday with its Quark AI glasses, joining Li Auto Inc (LI) and Xiaomi (XIACY) in a rapidly expanding market segment.
The message is clear: Alibaba isn't just building AI apps—it's betting on the full spectrum of AI-powered products, from software to hardware. Whether that translates into sustainable competitive advantage remains to be seen, but the early user growth numbers suggest the company is onto something.
BABA Price Action: BABA shares traded down 1.86% at $158.13 in pre-market trading Wednesday.
