Google Duo hits 1 billion downloads on the Play Store

Google Duo has reached 1 billion downloads on the Google Play Store, according to the latest public statistics from the biggest app marketplace.

Google Duo was first announced at Google I/O 2016 alongside Google Allo. You might be aware that Allo is finally getting the axe in a few months, but the story with Duo is quite the opposite. It’s seen wide-reaching success and even ships pre-installed on many Android devices.

That fact is likely the most significant contributing factor in its reaching of today’s 1,000,000,000 install milestone. As AP notes, only one app that doesn’t come pre-installed — Subway Surfers — has more than 1 billion downloads on the Play Store.

In Google’s recent update on the status of messaging at the company, Duo was a prime focus. In the newly-establish 2 by 2 grid of messaging apps covering both “friends” and “teams”, it serves as the video counterpart of the former category.

Read more about Google’s plans for messaging and Google Duo here.