Thanks to the rising popularity of Ghibli-style illustrations—based on the art style of Studio Ghibli and director Hayao Miyazaki—the number of daily active users (DAU) of ChatGPT in South Korea has broken its all-time record, day after day.
On March 27, when OpenAI launched ChatGPT-4o’s image generation feature, the South Korean DAU stood at around 1.25 million. By March 30, it had climbed to 1.4 million; by March 31, 1.98 million; and by April 1, it skyrocketed to 2.55 million.
According to Mobile Index by IGAWORKS on Friday, ChatGPT recorded 2,557,764 daily active users in South Korea as of April 1—an increase of 28.75% compared to the previous day’s 1,986,626. Since March 30, ChatGPT’s DAU has been rising steadily by 24% to 28% daily. Compared to the day image generation was released, usage has doubled in just five days.
The global response has also been strong. According to foreign media outlets such as The Information, ChatGPT reached 500 million weekly active users (WAU) globally at the end of last month, including 20 million paid subscribers. This is about a 30% increase compared to the 350 million WAU reported at the end of last year.
Reports also stated that the number of paid subscribers rose by 4.5 million during the same period.
OpenAI is leveraging the Ghibli-style image generation trend as an opportunity to expand its paying customer base. By offering differentiated service quality between free and paid tiers, the company aims to encourage free users to switch to paid subscriptions.
To establish a revenue model that converts free users into paying subscribers, OpenAI has been providing exclusive features for paid users—not just in image generation, but across various functionalities.
As OpenAI prioritizes GPU resources for paid subscribers, it remains difficult for free users to receive completed image results.
Most free users requesting Ghibli-style image generation receive a message saying the image cannot be generated at the moment and to try again later. Even if the process begins, they often face long wait times or receive an error message saying something went wrong during generation.
Image generation is limited to three per day. If users attempt to attach more files under this restriction, a message prompts them to either upgrade to ChatGPT Plus or try again after midnight.
ChatGPT’s subscription fees are significant: ChatGPT Plus is priced at $20 per month and ChatGPT Pro at $200 per month.
Meanwhile, CEO Sam Altman continues to post Ghibli-style transformations of his photos on his X account.
On March 27, he changed his profile picture to a Ghibli-style image, writing, “Our GPUs are melting.” On March 30, he joked, “Can yall please chill on generating images this is insane our team needs sleep.”