Google Allo, their latest messaging app, has been dropping in popularity and has actually dropped out of the top 500 apps on the Google Play Store. Now, it has actually dropped out a few times in the past few weeks, but this is the first time that many people noticed that it had dropped out of the top apps on the Play Store. Allo debuted in the fall, and quickly jumped up the list of the most popular apps on the Play Store, but since launch it has slowly fallen in popularity, and is no longer in the top 500 (technically the top 540 apps).
At Google I/O last year in May, the company debuted Allo and Duo, their new messaging and video chat apps. The two apps officially launched in the fall with new hardware. Google Allo was popular at launch as it was the first look that many people got at the Google Assistant, which is still only available on the Google Pixel, Pixel XL and Google Home. Allo does have a ton of features that make it a better app than you would get with Google Hangouts, the other popular messaging app for Google. Including the ability to send GIFs, send different sized text and much more. Allo appears to be Google’s replacement for texting as well as instant messaging. Google also believes that the solution isn’t an all-in-one messaging app, but rather more apps, which is why Duo and Allo are separate apps and not all rolled into one.
Allo will likely not make it into the top 500 apps on the Google Play Store any time soon. Unless Google does happen to launch a large update to the app with some must-have features that will make many users download the app. Google Hangouts is still part of the top 500 apps on the Google Play Store, and this likely shows you how many people are still using Hangouts versus Allo. Seeing as Hangouts was formerly Google Talk, it makes sense as to why more people are using Hangouts rather than Allo, not to mention the fact that there is no way to use Allo on the web or on desktop, which there is with Hangouts.