Instagram has had an interesting history to it, starting off as the reserve of iPhone users before moving to Android, which, despite ruffling some iPhone users’ feathers, arguably helped make the platform the global sensation that it is today. It was launched back in 2010, and was launched on Android not too long after. Back in 2012, Facebook purchased the service for a sizeable $1 Billion. That 1 Billion figure is starting to become something of a reccurence, as Instagram has now hit 1 Billion downloads in the Play Store. Now that it has 1 Billion downloads in the Play Store on Android, it becomes Facebook’s fourth app to do so, following on from the likes of Facebook itself, WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger.
This latest milestone makes Instagram the 19th app in Google’s Play Store to hit 1 Billion downloads, joining the same list as the aforementioned Facebook apps and most of Google’s apps. The first to hit the 1 Billion mark was of course Gmail, followed quickly by Google Maps, YouTube and Facebook. Google and Facebook currently make up the only two developers or publishers to have apps reach the 1 Billion download mark, which isn’t all that surprising. Some of the apps that have reached this figure include key Android components such as Google Play Games, Google Search, Google Chrome and even Google+ which might have 1 Billion downloads, but nowhere near that many active users.
With more and more apps reaching such a milestone, the 1 Billion download stamp is becoming less and less unique, but as we mentioned, with Google and Facebook dominating the list it’s time for someone new to round out number 20. Possible candidates for filling the position include Snapchat and Twitter, both of which appear to have had a good year, with Snapchat occupying much of the same space online as Instagram itself does, and Twitter being one of the most-used social media platforms on the Earth. Regardless, the developers behind Instagram, as well as those at Facebook, will no doubt be happy to have reached such a milestone on Android, even if these installs aren’t all active users, it’s an impressive statistic to add to one’s resume, no matter how big or small you might be.