Niantic Lab’s augmented reality game, Pokemon GO has been making headlines ever since its launch on July 5, from being used more frequently than Snapchat and WhatsApp to becoming the most popular mobile game in the history of the US. Most recently, the game has managed to break the record to become the fastest game to be downloaded over 50 million times. However, that only accounts for downloads from the Google Play Store.
According to app analytics firm Sensor Tower, it took only 19 days since its launch for the highly popular game to rack up over 50 million downloads on the Google Play Store and 25 million downloads on the Apple App Store, which brings it to a total of 75 million downloads in the space of 19 or so days. Pokemon GO has managed to beat other recently launched games including Supercell’s popular Clash Royale, in the race to reach 50 million downloads. Clash Royale was launched four months before Pokemon GO and is yet to reach the 50 million milestone. Pokemon GO recently beat the strategy based Clash Royale to the 10 million mark. Other games which have reached the 50 million download mark include the simple but frustrating game, Color Switch which took 77 days and Slither.io which took 81 days. The Candy Crush spin-off, Candy Crush Jelly Saga took 112 days to reach the same milestone. Sensor Tower predicts that Pokemon GO may reach 100 million downloads within the first two months, especially if the updates hinted by John Hanke, the CEO of Niantic, hit sooner than expected. This will be no small feat to achieve as even popular dating app Tinder managed to hit 100 million downloads only recently, and it has been around since 2012, compared to the 2 weeks Pokemon GO has been available.
Considering Pokemon GO has only been launched in just 32 markets of the over 100 markets which the Google Play Store and Apple App Store operate in, it is an astounding feat to be achieved by its creators, Niantic. Pokemon GO is currently ranked at number one in the Apple App Store in all markets which the game is available for download, including France and Hong Kong, where the game was just released yesterday.