Facebook’s new Home Android launcher has passed the 500,000 download mark on the Google Play store after a little over a week in the wild, though it continues to accumulate mostly negative reviews and has sunk to an average rating of 2.2.
The milestone was noted by Benedict Evans on Twitter.
Facebook first released the software in the US on April 12 before rolling it out to international users on the 16th. 500,000 downloads is a modest start for Facebook, which has a global user base of over a billion, but the app’s audience is limited since only a few Android devices are supported at this time. By comparison, the main Facebook app on Android has between 100 million and 500 million downloads.
As another point of reference, Instagram brought in 1 million downloads in just 24 hours when it arrived on Android last April.
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Facebook Home received an unusually large number of one-star reviews shortly after launch, and that trend has continued. At the time of publishing, 5,617 of the total 10,905 reviews (52%) were one-star ratings.
Google Play doesn’t provide exact data on individual app installations, but a Google cache of the Facebook Home listing from April 19 shows the number of installs at 100,000 to 500,000. Currently, the app is listed in the 500,000 to 1 million range.
Image credit: Facebook
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