ChatGPT’s daily active users (DAU) in South Korea soared to a record-breaking 1.4 million, riding the wave of Ghibli-style images, inspired by Studio Ghibli of director Hayao Miyazaki.
This figure shattered the previous record of 1,252,925 set just three days ago on March 27, when it released ChatGPT-4o Image Generation.
According to IGAWORKS’s mobile index report on Wednesday, ChatGPT’s DAU hit an unprecedented 1,404,799 on March 30. Despite a dip to 1,212,416 and 1,128,546 on March 28 and 29, respectively, user numbers surged by 24.5% on Sunday, March 30.
The phenomenon isn’t confined to South Korea; it’s making waves globally. According to The Information, ChatGPT’s weekly active users (WAU) exceeded 500 million by the end of last month, with 20 million paid subscribers. This marks a substantial 30% increase from the 350 million WAU reported at the end of last year.
Reports indicate that the number of paid subscribers also increased by 4.5 million during this period.
OpenAI is capitalizing on the Ghibli-style’s popularity to expand its paid subscriber base.
Free users are experiencing difficulties obtaining image generation results. Requests for Ghibli-style image transformations often yield the response: “We’re currently unable to generate images. Please try again later.”
When image generation does initiate, users face extended wait times and may encounter error messages like, “Something went wrong.”
Users are also limited to three to five attempts to generate images daily. If users try to attach images beyond this limit, they will see a message: “Upgrade to ChatGPT Plus to attach more files, or try again after midnight.”
CEO Sam Altman shared a Ghibli-style transformed image of himself holding a baby on his X account on Tuesday.
On March 27, the launch day of ChatGPT-4o Image Generation, he updated his profile picture to a Ghibli-style image, quipping, “Our GPUs are melting.”
On March 30, he pleaded for users to pause image generation, stating, “This is insane. Our team needs sleep.” He added, “The chatGPT launch 26 months ago was one of the craziest viral moments I’d ever seen, and we added one million users in five days. We added one million users in the last hour.”