Ant’s AQ health app tops 100 million users amid holiday surge

Ant Group’s artificial intelligence health app AQ surpassed 100 million users during the Lunar New Year holiday, the company said, underlining growing momentum in China’s AI-driven healthcare sector.

The app topped China’s Apple App Store overall download rankings for several consecutive days over the holiday period, according to Ant Group.

Ant Group attributed the surge in part to younger, tech-savvy consumers who, after returning home for Lunar New Year gatherings, shared the app with their families to help monitor their well-being, particularly elderly parents and grandparents.

Ant Group is an affiliate of Alibaba Group Holding, which owns the South China Morning Post.

AQ also gained visibility through a marketing push tied to this year’s Spring Festival Gala, one of the world’s most-watched television broadcasts, in which the app featured in a comedy skit.

Adoption broadened beyond China’s largest cities, with third-tier cities and below accounting for 52 per cent of new users during the holiday, the company said.

AQ’s most popular features include AI-powered health consultations, skin-condition analysis and virtual medical advice, alongside personalised wellness tracking and digital health records.