Google Messages surpasses five billion installs target

Google Messages was previously known as Android Messages. In this short piece, we will uncover the details about the popularity of Google Messages. Well, the app was successful in gaining 100 million downloads back in October 2017. In 2020, the app was successfully downloaded one billion times. After a time span of three years, the app has crossed the target of five billion downloads.

Over 5 billion times, the app was downloaded

A user can’t view the download count for any particular app on the Google Play Store. Rather, the Play Store features milestone targets like one million, five million, ten million, 100 million, one billion, etc. In May 2014, Gmail was the first Android app to cross the target of one billion installs. The app crossed the target of 10 billion installs last year. In November 2021, Google Maps hit the “ten billion” milestone.

Well, the major advantage here is that both apps were pre-installed on most Android smartphones. In comparison, Google Messages is not available as a default messaging app on most Android devices. Instead, the app is available on Pixel smartphones and a few other smartphones. Other smartphone companies, like Samsung, were dependent on other messaging platforms.

However, things have begun to change in the last few years. Google Messages can now be found as the default messaging app on several Android devices, like the ones from Samsung. One of the main reasons behind the mass adoption of the Google Messages app could be attributed to the RCS (Rich Communication Services) feature. As compared to traditional SMS and MMS, RCS offers advanced messaging functionalities like typing indicators, end-to-end encryption, and reading receipts.

One thing to notice here is that RCS is a messaging standard and not a standalone service by Google. For this reason, it can be adopted by third-party messaging platforms. Recently, it was reported that Google Messages will soon receive multi-device support. With the current developments, the app might cross the ten billion target in the next few years.