Clubhouse turned one this week and will celebrate that milestone with a reported 13 million downloads under its belt — up from a reported 8 million downloads by February. That's not bad going for an app that remains in beta, is invite-only on iOS, and has yet to be launched for Android. For the first time too, there's also an insight into where Clubhouse is being downloaded.
That 13 million downloads figure is all the more remarkable given that founders Paul Davison and Rohan Seth said in June 2020 that, when they had begun building the service three months earlier, their goal had been to "collect feedback, quietly iterate, and avoid making noise until we felt the product was ready for everyone." Instead, their platform has hosted chats with the likes of Elon Musk, Bill Gates, and Mark Zuckerberg and has would-be users hammering on the door for entry. The first 12 months has not been without bumps in the road, though, with concerns about its security in relation to China, questions raised how private its content is, and, most recently, an investigation opened in Europe about whether it has contravened data privacy laws.
The new data comes from mobile data and analytics firm App Annie, as reported by Social Media Today, and notes that the app only officially launched on the App Store six months ago on Sept 14, 2020. It is said to have been downloaded 12.7 million times since, with 1.3 million downloads in the first half of March alone. Social Media Today quotes App Annie's Lexi Sydow as saying: "Garnering this level of success from invite-only access and limited to iOS is particularly impressive and has caught the attention of other publishers - particularly those in the social media space like Twitter and ByteDance."
Where Is Clubhouse Being Downloaded?
As would be expected given its US roots, nearly a third of Clubhouse's downloads have been in the US, with a reported 3.2 million. One might think this would be head and shoulders above any other county, but Japan has also registered a significant 1.8 million downloads, the only other market in which downloads have exceeded a million.
Four further countries have seen downloads in excess of half a million, with Germany registering 735,000, Brazil 615,000, Russia 540,000, and Malaysia 567,000. The seventh and eighth-largest markets so far both hail from Europe, with Italy chalking up 435,000 downloads and the UK 397,000. Completing the top ten are South Korea with 387,000 downloads and Turkey with 363,000. Naturally, a whole host of others will make up the remainder, but these biggest markets so far will warrant particular focus from Clubhouse as it seeks to fight competition from the likes of Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
Source: Social Media Today