Video calling apps aren’t exactly new. Skype offered up similar functionality for the longest time ever, then pretty much every messaging app such as WhatsApp, Messenger, LINE, and so on started to offer up similar features as well. However it turns out that Google’s Duo could be more popular than we thought in such a competitive space.
According to a report from Android Police, it appears that Google Duo has been downloaded 1 billion times from the Play Store. Given that the app was sitting around the 500 million mark about 6 months ago, it is actually pretty impressive that it has managed to double that number in half a year, although to be fair, there is a good chance that this is helped greatly by the fact that Duo comes preinstalled on a number of Android phones to begin with.
That being said, the 1 billion number seems to only be for the Play Store, and when combined with the downloads for iOS devices, we reckon that the number will probably be a lot higher. Like we said, video calling apps are a dime a dozen but one of the features that Duo has that offers an advantage over the competition, is that it shows users a live video of the person calling.
This means that it potentially reduces catfishing attempts, plus you also get to know if there are other person in the room before you answer.