36Kr Exclusive | Doubao's DAU Exceeds 100 Million, Becoming ByteDance's Product with the Lowest Promotion Cost to Reach 100 Million Users

Author | Li Xiaoxia

Editors | Qiao Qian, Yang Xuan

36Kr has exclusively learned that the daily active user (DAU) count of Doubao has exceeded 100 million, adding another product with over 100 million DAUs to ByteDance's APP kingdom.

After multiple verifications by 36Kr, this data is confirmed to be true.

According to insiders at ByteDance, the user growth (UG) and marketing expenses of Doubao are the lowest among all ByteDance products that have reached over 100 million DAUs in the company's history.

People familiar with the matter said that the user retention rate of Doubao this year is decent. In addition, Doubao's Seedream image - generation model and Seedance video - generation model continue to activate creative scenarios. Doubao's P - photo features like the three - grid layout have continuously made it onto the hot search lists, driving up to millions of organic downloads per day.

ByteDance was one of the early domestic companies to enter the AI field. As early as June 2023, ByteDance began internal testing and launched the Doubao APP in August. In comparison, Kimi was launched on October 9, 2023, and Tencent's Yuanbao was launched on May 30, 2024, giving Doubao a head - start. Since then, Doubao has long topped the APP download list.

Beyond this achievement, Doubao has also been taking a series of intensive actions: from launching the Doubao phone to complete the "hardware + AI" layout, to connecting with Douyin e - commerce to open up the "AI + consumption" scenario, Doubao is also trying to quickly build an ecosystem covering multiple scenarios.

The success of the product is inseparable from the support of technology and organization. The ByteDance Seed team, which is responsible for the Doubao large - model, is regarded as a core strategic business of the company. In 2025, it not only completed the merger and integration of multiple teams such as the AI Lab but also underwent an organizational structure upgrade. Wu Yonghui became the team leader, fully focusing on the basic research and application implementation of large - models. To motivate the team, ByteDance also provided additional stock option rewards for Seed team members and cancelled the quarterly OKR assessment for some long - term research projects.

Meanwhile, the rapid rise of Doubao is stirring up the competitive landscape of the domestic AI application market. Facing its strong traffic and excellent key indicators, other tech giants are also stepping up their investment.

In the first half of the year, Tencent's Yuanbao continued to ramp up its promotion efforts. Data from AppGrowing shows that since February this year, Yuanbao's advertising spending has been on the rise, and it once topped the free APP download list on the Chinese App Store.

At the end of this year, as Alibaba launched its AI - to - consumer plan, Qianwen, Afu, and Lingguang have successively launched large - scale promotions. Qianwen announced that its monthly active user count had exceeded 30 million just 23 days after its launch.

It is understood that Volcengine will become the exclusive AI cloud partner of the 2026 Spring Festival Gala of China Media Group, and Doubao will also launch some interactive features in conjunction with it.

As the most - watched cultural IP in the country, the interactive cooperation with the CCTV Spring Festival Gala has always been a highly - sought - after opportunity for companies and brands. Douyin was the exclusive interactive platform for the Spring Festival Gala in 2019 and 2021.

2025 was regarded as the first year of AI, which kicked off with the sudden emergence and phenomenal popularity of DeepSeek. As we enter 2026, it may be Doubao that takes on the responsibility of popularizing AI and integrating it into the daily lives of hundreds of millions of people.

However, there are also voices within ByteDance suggesting that there is no clear path for Doubao's commercialization, and the inference cost of its large DAU also exerts some pressure on the company's profits.

However, it is reported that the commercialization progress of Doubao's large - model MaaS service has far exceeded expectations. Through technological optimization, it has achieved high cost - effectiveness while also having good gross margins.