'Pokémon Go' shatters records on its way to estimated 75 million downloads
The days of insane growth may be over for Pokémon Go (and frankly, it's hard to imagine any app sustaining growth at that rate), but the mobile augmented reality game is still the fastest-growing ever, by a large margin.
App store optimization platform Sensor Tower estimates that Pokémon Go has been installed more than 75 million times so far, on Apple's iOS and Google's Android platforms combined. And that's despite the fact that the game is still not fully global; in fact, it's only been launched in 32 of the 100 markets in which Google Play and Apple's App Store are available.
How does that compare with other mobile gaming hits? Sensor Tower claims Pokémon Go has surpassed 50 million downloads worldwide on Google Play over the weekend, 19 days after launch. It took Color Switch 77 days to reach this milestone; Slither.io got there in 81, and Candy Crush Jelly Saga needed 112 days to get to 50 million downloads on Android.
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The fact that Pokémon Go did this with very little advertising, and without being featured on the App Store or Google Play in any country yet (according to Sensor Tower), makes the feat even more admirable. The game still tops all the charts -- it's the top free as well as the top grossing app everywhere it launched, but according to SurveyMonkey's data from a few days ago, its usage has peaked roughly a week after launch. Niantic has promised a number of changes and some new features for the game, including customizable Pokéstops, new Pokémons, extended Gym functionality and Pokémon breeding.
After its initial launch in the U.S., New Zealand and Australia, the game was launched in a number of European countries, Canada and, most recently, Hong Kong. Whether the game will ever launch in China remains a mystery, as the country restricts mobile GPS data, which is needed to play the game.
Stan is a Senior Editor at Mashable, where he has worked since 2007. He's got more battery-powered gadgets and band t-shirts than you. He writes about the next groundbreaking thing. Typically, this is a phone, a coin, or a car. His ultimate goal is to know something about everything.
