❯ Chinese models reportedly reached 46% of U.S. OpenRouter weekly usage at one point, as open distribution expands reach

Usage sharePublic accounts of Rhodium Group data say Chinese-origin models exceeded 30% of weekly token volume among U.S. OpenRouter users and peaked at 46%. The measure covers OpenRouter only, not all U.S. model use or enterprise traffic through private interfaces.

Distribution pathOpen weights and low prices let developers self-host or call DeepSeek, Kimi and GLM through aggregators such as OpenRouter. That reach can dilute vendor revenue: usage may sit on third-party channels, fail to flow back as direct revenue, and resist comparison with official API data.

Commercial splitU.S. model companies rely more heavily on closed APIs and subscriptions, while Chinese vendors use open distribution to reach global developers. Investors need to separate token share, paid revenue and model origin, and test whether the share persists across platforms before inferring market leadership.

▪ SIGNALChinese models’ overseas reach is visible in token volume, but usage share and revenue share remain different measures.