Apart from a handful of applications, like Google Chrome, YouTube, among others that come pre-installed on Android devices, there are only a few that have reached the milestone of getting over 5 billion installs on the Google Play Store. WhatsApp has now achieved this feat. Its parent company’s app Facebook hit the 5 billion mark last year, reportedly due to its partnerships with Samsung and other companies. It is to be noted that the 5 billion number includes both the downloads from the Play Store and pre-installed copies.
Even though it is not used in China, WhatsApp remains one of the top apps that is used to communicate with friends and family. According to Facebook Inc, WhatsApp has more than 1.5 billion active monthly users (AMUs) globally. The company had announced that the platform was used for sending a record 100 billion private messages on New Year’s Eve globally, out of which, Indians sent over 20 billion messages.
Recently, a report by SensorTower noted that overall (Google Play Store and Apple App Store), WhatsApp was the most downloaded app globally in the fourth quarter of 2019. When seen individually, WhatsApp took the top spot with maximum downloads on the Google Play Store, and grabbed the fourth spot in the App Store.
WhatsApp experienced a huge growth of 39 per cent (quarter over quarter basis) in the fourth quarter of 2019, after decreased downloads in the previous four quarters. WhatsApp was also the top installed app in European countries, including Great Britain, France, Germany, and Russia. Strong growth in Turkey and Russia helped it achieve 9 per cent year over year growth. If we take the whole year into account, WhatsApp grabbed the top spot with about 850 million installs overall. In fact, WhatsApp has been the most popular app since 2016.