Gmail app for Android passes one billion downloads barrier

Google’s Gmail app for Android has passed the one billion download mark. This makes it the first individual app ever from the Play Store with so many downloads. Google Play Services already reached one billion downloads at the beginning of January.

According to Android Police has app tracker AppBrain found out that the one billionth download took place sometime around May 6. To determine the number of downloads, we looked at the number of unique accounts that downloaded the Gmail app; however, many of those accounts would now be unused.

It’s not entirely illogical that the Gmail app is the first standalone app to reach one billion downloads; the email app is installed by default on all new mobile devices that run on Android. As a result, the download number could give an indication of the number of devices in circulation that run Android as an operating system. In 2012, there would be 425 million active Android users, but it is likely that due to the increased popularity of Google’s mobile operating system, that number is now much higher.