❯ Chinese models take OpenRouter’s weekly top five as Step 5 Preview usage rises 30%

A platform-specific weekly tableAccording to National Business Daily’s calculations from OpenRouter data, October 12–18 usage totaled about 164 trillion tokens, down 4.65% week over week. Listed Chinese models accounted for 79.18 trillion and US models for 17.36 trillion, down 8.72% and 8.49%. Chinese models led this comparison for a twenty-fifth consecutive week and occupied the weekly top five.

Different trajectories at the topMarsBit’s account of the same statistics puts DeepSeek V4.1 Flash first for a second week at 32.8 trillion tokens, down 20%; GLM 5.3 Flash second at 12.2 trillion; and Step 5 Preview third at 11.5 trillion, up 30%. Individual usage can rise amid a falling total because of integrations, prices or migration, but these figures do not isolate those causes.

What the numbers coverOpenRouter’s methodology says the figures cover input and output tokens routed through its API and exclude private requests. They do not capture all direct APIs, chat applications or private deployments, nor measure users, revenue or capability. Developers can use the table as an adoption signal while assessing task results, reliability and bills separately. Longer model outputs also affect token totals.

▮ SIGNALPlatform usage rankings reveal developer choices, while industry-wide demand and commercial revenue require different evidence.