Google’s Gmail app has become the first smartphone app to pass one billion installations on Android devices, it has been revealed.
The milestone, announced by Sundar Pichai, Google’s head of Android, was crossed sometime last week; the Google Play Store ranks apps by downloads in different ranges and the Gmail Android app ticked over into the one to five billion bracket.
The figure excludes updates to avoid double counting and the Google Play services app is disqualified from the counting, as it is required as part of the Google Play Store.
Amazon’s Kindle Fire range of Android devices and Microsoft’s Nokia X smartphones do not come with Gmail installed as default, nor is it possible to download the Gmail app through their app stores.
Nor are there any figures for the number of downloads of the Gmail app for Apple’s iPhone and iPad.
So far, some of the apps in the 500 million to one billion install range include Google Search, Facebook and Google Maps.