Sora’s Android debut arrived with a serious showing. On the day of its release on Google Play, an estimated 470,000 users installed the AI video app, according to the app intelligence provider Appfigures — bringing it within reach of half a million out of the gate.
That opening was far better than the app’s iOS start. Appfigures’ updated modeling now places Sora’s first day on iPhone at approximately 110,000 installs — where that initial explosion was magnified on Android, resulting in roughly 327% more downloads, well over 4x the volume. The catch, as analysts point out, is availability: iOS debuted with geographic and invite restrictions, while Android was available in more locations with fewer limitations.
Wider Availability Fueled Early Scale for Sora Android
Sora Android is available in the United States, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam. OpenAI has also lifted the invite gate in some key territories, so onboarding is easier than when it first launched on iOS and was U.S./Canada only with required invitation codes.
The U.S. made up roughly 296,000 of Android’s day-one installs, or about 63% of the total, according to Appfigures. The rest of the interest came from Asia-Pacific markets where Android penetration is significant and video-forward social behavior is stronger, which can mean early adoption for creative tools.
Signals From the Charts and Early Engagement Trends
Momentum started even before Android. Sora surpassed 1 million installs during its first week on iOS; it also climbed to the top of the App Store’s free charts. It has remained pinned to the top of the U.S. iPhone charts, signaling that enthusiasm hasn’t waned now that it’s no longer a novelty.
Its product design probably has something to do with it. Sora allows users to create short videos from text prompts and includes Cameos, which animates you and your friends using AI. A vertical, scrolling feed displays “Community Creations” in a familiar, TikTok-like format. Those social loops can drive up retention and virality — critical to the mix when early installs are swelling quickly.
Why the Android Surge Is So Significant for Sora
Getting close to a half-million installs on day one broadens Sora’s creator base and the range of prompts and outputs running through the system. For OpenAI, that data provides additional real-world usage information to improve models, content safety filters and editing tools, not to mention stress-testing infrastructure against mobile-scale demand.
It also broadens the potential audience for future monetization. OpenAI hasn’t detailed long-term pricing for Sora on mobile, but popular routes are premium tiers, credits for longer or higher-resolution clips, and tie-ins with established subscriptions. The immediate question for analysts is not downloads, however; it’s day-7 and day-30 retention, completion rates for video generations, and how much the app currently scales when it comes to whether, when and what teenagers produce at an output quality suitable to share publicly.
Competition and the Road Ahead for AI Video Apps
Sora isn’t scaling in a vacuum, though. Meta AI has just made its mobile app available to European users, following an earlier U.S. release and increasing the fight for consumer attention around AI-powered creation and assistance. Meanwhile, specialized generative video platforms Runway and Pika continue to push on quality and workflow features, and mainstream editors like CapCut add more AI tooling that could intersect with casual creation.
Two questions will drive the next phase.
- Can Sora turn explosive demand into regular creation habits once the initial rush subsides?
- Can it keep the guardrails — identity protection, deepfake detection and content moderation — at a rate of speed that keeps up with growth?
How OpenAI handles those trade-offs, and how frequently it ships incremental improvements to fidelity, length and controllability, will decide if that first-day spike becomes a sustainable lead.
For now, the lesson is simple. With 470,000 day-one installs on Android, Sora has passed the first test of consumer scale. If engagement mirrors the download curve, the app will have just flashed a flare that mobile-first AI video creation is graduating from novelty to norm.