Video Conferencing Apps Got 6.2 Crore Downloads In Just One Week Due To CO.VID-19

During the CO.VID-19 pandemic, governments are telling people to work from home, practice social distancing, and even put the entire country on lockdown. This has led to an increase in the demand for video conferencing apps, for both personal and work use.

App Annie recently reported on Monday video conferencing apps have experienced a rise in the number of downloads, the highest number ever. Specifically, from March 14 to March 21, video conferencing apps were downloaded a total of 62 million times.

This figure also indicates the number of new users these apps have got due to the pandemic.

For instance, business apps on Google Play Store and the App Store have crossed the 62-million mark earlier this month, 45 percent higher than the prior week. This is also the largest increase of all app categories of that week, according to the report. And that was a 90 percent rise from the weekly average downloads of business apps last year.

This significant rise is mostly because more people downloaded Zoom Cloud Meetings, Microsoft Teams, and Google’s Hangouts Meet.

In February and March, Zoom had the largest growth in the world and continues to get more downloads from the US, UK, as well as other countries in Europe. During its record week, the app got 14 times as many downloads as its weekly average in Q4 2019 in the US. The number of downloads it got in that week was also 20 times as high as the weekly average in Q4 2019 in the UK, 22 times that in France, 17 times that in Germany, 27 times that in Spain, and 55 times that in Italy.

Meanwhile, in the same week, Google’s Hangouts Meet got 24 times, 30 times, 64 times, and 140 times as many downloads as the average weekly figure in Q4 2019 in the UK, the US, Spain, and Italy, respectively.

In terms of Microsoft Team, the app also saw considerable growth in Italy, France, and Spain with respective 30 times, 16 times, and 15 times the downloads it got in Q4 last year.

Regarding consumer apps, Houseparty, a social video conferencing application, has been increasingly downloaded in several parts of the world. In Italy, during March 14-21, it was downloaded 423 times the average weekly figure of Q4 2019. In Spain, though, its growth was recorded at even 2,360 times during the same week.

Apart from business and social video conferencing apps, educational apps also experienced growth in March, including ABCmouse and Google Classroom. Grocery delivery apps like Instacart also rose.

Such remarkable growth, all in all, is easy to understand as people around the world are under lockdown for an indefinite amount of time and they have to find workarounds to continue their work as well as keep in touch with their friends and family. With the current situation, there’s no telling when this nightmare will end, but it’s certain that online services and social apps are gaining.

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