Android apps and app stores are curious industries. It seems the bigger the app industry becomes, the cloudier what a ‘good’ app actually is, becomes. Thanks to the different marketing strategies, like freemium, premium and the likes, not even revenues can effectively determine the popularity or the ‘goodness’ of an app anymore. Luckily though, app installs are a relatively good way to determine how successful an app is. Regardless of how much the app generates, how often and how much it is being installed, does seem to be the current benchmark for success.
With that in mind, those who are considered the real high fliers in the app world are not those that reach the million marker (although that is an achievement by anyone’s standards) and not even those who reached the tens of millions downloads marker. Instead, the real bigwigs in the android app world, seem to be those who reach the billion install marker. Well, before today there were only eight apps which had managed to reach that massive billion install milestone. However, today both Google Play Books and Facebook Messenger have become the ninth and tenth app to be installed more than a billion times.
Interestingly, although not entirely surprising, including the two latest additions to the billion install club, seven out of the ten apps on the billion list are all Google apps. As these come pre-loaded on virtually all android devices, nowadays, it is less surprising for those to reach the dizzying hights as the non-Google apps who have achieved the same status. That said, the goal of surpassing the one billion marker is still one to be proud of. As you would expect, the Google apps that have reached this massive milestone are some of the most popular Google apps, including YouTube, Gmail, Google Maps and Google Search. Equally as interesting, the remaining three apps which are not Google, but also have passed the billion market are all Facebook apps (or affiliated at least). These include the newly accredited Facebook Messenger, Facebook (the main app) and WhatsApp, which was early last year purchased by Facebook and crossed the one billion marker back in March.