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If installs were currency, Google Pay would have 500 million in the bank

Seems like mobile payments are as popular as ever

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Mobile payments are the way of the future (or so I've been told), and it seems Google's well aware of that. The company has spent the last year completely renovating its Pay app to be far more advanced than anything that's come before. Spending habits, sending and requesting money from friends, and rewards programs are all part of the relaunched effort, and with its latest installs milestone, it seems to be paying off for Google (no pun intended).

Google's dedicated Assistant app hits 500 million installs on the Play Store

It's still just a shortcut, but a very popular one

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If you've ever had to send a text while driving or set a timer while cooking, you know how helpful Google Assistant can be. It's as essential a tool as anything else you'll find on your phone, and since it's built right into the standard Google app, you can be confident it's on every Android device. Of course, Google offers a dedicated Assistant shortcut app in the Play Store, and while it's not necessary, it sure is popular. Less than a year after its last milestone, Assistant has hit 500 million installs on the Play Store.

Google's phone dialer application started off as a Pixel-exclusive replacement for the AOSP Phone app, but it has made plenty of appearances on devices from other companies, and Google even started allowing most people to download it from the Play Store. Now the app has passed a new milestone, according to the Play Store: 500 million installations.

Zoom now has just as many installs on Android as Spotify and SwiftKey

The app has now passed 500 million downloads

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Zoom was already a popular video-conferencing tool before the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Still, as it became one of the top choices for video calls at the start of 2020 (much to Google's chagrin), it quickly turned into a household name. If you needed another indicator of how popular Zoom has become, the Android app just passed 500 million downloads on the Google Play Store.

Google One passes 100 million installs on Play Store

The number is partially boosted by pre-installations

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Android devices have to include at least some of Google's own applications if they want access to the Play Store (which is an issue on its own), so it's not too surprising when one of the company's apps reaches a significant number of installs. The management app for Google One is the latest application to reach 100 million installs, placing it in the same range as Google Classroom and YouTube Studio.

Opera Mini passes 500 million installs on Android

Yes, Opera Mini is still around

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Opera Mini is one of the few applications on Android that predate the existence of Android itself. The web browser got its start on Java ME-compatible basic phones, and was later ported to BlackBerry, Symbian, Windows Phone, and eventually iOS and Android. Now the app has passed a major milestone on Google's smartphone platform: 500 million installations.

Pinterest has more than 500 million Play Store installs for some reason

It's as popular as Reddit — at least when it comes to app installations

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500,000,000 is a huge number, especially when it comes to app installs on the Google Play Store. Google Contacts and YouTube Music achieved the milestone earlier this month, and now another developer is joining the 500 million installs club: Pinterest, the app for visual inspiration.

YouTube Music reaches 500 million installs as it prepares to lay Google Play Music to rest

"Guess I might as well check it out," said depressed Google Play Music subscriber

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The YouTube Music app has been around for about half a decade now. It started out as merely a new way to watch music videos on YouTube, but was relaunched in 2018 as a full-fledged music streaming service with the eventual goal of replacing Google Play Music. As that objective draws closer to becoming a reality, YouTube Music has officially joined the likes of Google Contacts (among others) in crossing the 500 million install count in the Play Store.

Google added its Contact and Phones apps to the Play Store in December 2015, so they could receive updates outside of full system upgrades. That allows the Contacts app to be installed on devices that shipped with a different contact picker, helping push it over the 500 million installs mark to join YouTube GO, Android Auto, and Google Files.

Android Auto recently passed 500 million installs on the Play Store, possibly thanks to its inclusion on most phones shipping with Android 10, and now two more Google-made applications have passed significant milestones.

Many of the Play Store install milestones that go by are more a reflection of 'how many phones was this app bundled with' than 'look at how many people downloaded this by choice.' Telegram doesn't ship pre-installed on any Android phones, but despite that, the app just passed 500 million downloads on the Google Play Store.

I don't think it's a stretch to say SwiftKey is one of the most important Android apps ever released. It's largely responsible for popularizing swipe-typing, which can now be found on pretty much every other software keyboard. Now the app has passed 500 million installations on the Play Store.

Google's been heavily working on improving its Messages app, by enriching it with advanced features such as context-aware recommendations, a dark mode, RCS support, and a web interface. Thanks to these, it's only natural for the software to be one of the most installed messaging apps on the Play Store, as it's in the top 25 communication software on the Play Store according to App Annie. It's actually so popular it's been downloaded more than 500 million times by Android users.

Today, Google Slides becomes the last of the three main apps in the Drive productivity suite to have hit the 500-million-install mark on the Play Store. It only took about 1,787 days (give or take a few, depending on when Google updated its count) to get to this milestone.

Someone needs to go buy a green-frosted cake because we're about to celebrate this momentous occasion for Spotify. The app just passed the cap of 500 million "downloads" or "installs" on Android, depending on whether you want to take into account the Play Store's app or web wording choice, respectively.

The Play Store doesn't provide very precise metrics for app installs, but it does give us general milestones of their success, and Netflix just reached a major one. The ubiquitous streaming service has now reached 500,000,000 installs — that's 500 million, if you don't care to count the commas or zeros.

Clash of Clans used to be one of the most popular mobile games, consistently ranking high in app stores' top charts. In fact, it was so popular that it spawned a whole mess of crappy spin-offs with similar icons and "clash" or "clans" in their names. These days, not nearly as many people play anymore, but all of the installs from the Play Store now add up to over 500 million.

Everyone's favorite free word processor, Google Docs, has racked up more than half a billion installs, according to its Play Store listing. Along with Google Sheets, the app was released about four and a half years ago, in April 2014. (Unsurprisingly, Sheets is lagging pretty far behind, with a paltry 100,000,000+ installs.)

After years of rumors and speculation, Microsoft released Android versions of its primary Office applications back in 2015. Word, PowerPoint, and Excel for Android have undergone many changes since then, like the addition of phone support and closer feature parity to the desktop and web apps.

Samsung Health initially debuted as 'S Health' on the Galaxy S3. It was initially only available on Samsung's Galaxy Apps store, but became available to all Android 4.4 KitKat+ devices in 2015. It's now hit a whopping 500 million downloads on the Play Store.

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