The ability to turn a user’s selfie into an anime character has turbocharged the Meitu app to the top of Japan’s download rankings over the past week, spurring a big jump in the company’s shares.
Hong Kong-based Meitu is up more than 50% over the past couple of weeks, in which time its app has reached the top of Apple’s free iPhone downloads chart and No. 2 on Android’s Google Play in Japan, according to data.ai figures. While not new to the Japanese market, the key novelty in the beauty app was the addition of the option to transform a photo into an anime style with the help of AI.
Meitu has been working on AI photo tools since 2017, and that’s begun to pay off with the anime-style selfies, which were rolled out in China on Nov. 24 and hit global markets like Japan three days later, said co-founder and CEO Wu Xinhong. Since last week, the Meitu app has been among the top three most-downloaded on Apple’s App Store in countries including the United States, Brazil, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, the CEO said. Global downloads surged 79% in the week commencing Nov. 28, data.ai figures showed.