Android TV’s YouTube app hits 50 million downloads, hinting at the platform’s popularity

Ben Schoon | May 29 2020 - 8:29 am PT

One app you’ll find pre-installed on pretty much every Android TV device is YouTube. Now, that app has crossed the milestone of being downloaded 50 million times, giving us a rough idea of how popular the platform is.

First spotted by Android Police, the Google Play Store listing for the YouTube app on Android TV recently surpassed 50,000,000 total installs. That means, since Android TV’s debut in 2014, at least 50,000,000 individual users and/or devices have installed the YouTube app.

Since the YouTube app comes pre-loaded on the majority of Android TV devices, this gives a ballpark of how many users the platform has touched over the years. Chromecast built-in would give similar insight, but it sits at “10 million+,” a number which isn’t updated until hitting over 50 million. Another reason YouTube’s number might be higher is because it counts not only direct installs, but also how many accounts have been used. So if you switch accounts, it adds to that tally as would selling a box or TV to another user who signs in with their account.

This number might not give us a totally clear look at how successful Android TV has been, but it gives us some insight into that.

Data captured by AppBrain also line this number up with Google’s own claims. Previously, it’s been said that Android TV was seeing 2x growth yearly, and the numbers for the YouTube app closely mirror that.

This is good news for Google, too. The company hasn’t provided details on how many active Android TV users there are, but having 50 million in total since launch isn’t too shabby. For context, Roku, the current major player in the TV streaming platform, has around 32 million monthly active users. Android TV’s number is certainly lower than that, but having 50,000,000 all-time means Google probably isn’t that far behind.