Google Translate reaches 1 billion Play Store downloads

Kyle Bradshaw | Apr 5 2021 - 3:13 pm PT

For years, Google Translate has been one of the better ways to quickly exchange information between two languages. Over the weekend, the Google Translate app for Android reached a whopping 1 billion downloads on the Play Store.

Given its incredible utility, Google Translate has gradually become less of an app that you install and more of an integrated experience throughout Google’s ecosystem. You can find Google Translate in places like Google apps like Lens, Chrome, and Assistant, as well as third-party apps like Twitter.

That said, Google Translate does indeed still have a dedicated Android app, with simple features like translating copied or typed text from one language to another. The app is also home to more in-depth experiences like camera-based translation that can put real-world languages into your native tongue, as well as a handy “Tap to Translate” option.

Though the app has not seen a major redesign in a few years, carrying the appearance of a classic Material Design app instead of the newer Google Material Theme style, it’s an essential app that almost every Android owner should have installed.

To that end, as reported by Android Police, Google Translate reached a new milestone in the Play Store, crossing the threshold from over 500 million downloads to over 1 billion. For comparison, Microsoft Translator has only 50 million Play Store downloads.

The milestone comes as Lens, Google’s other major experience for Translate, gets a deeper integration into Android 12.