Google Messages celebrates 10 billion installations. Phone also surpassed a significant milestone

When Google unified its chaotic messengers into a single Messages app years ago, few expected it to become one of the world’s largest communication tools. Now it turns out that this bet paid off – the app has just surpassed 10 billion downloads on Google Play.

Rapid Growth Thanks to Partnerships

Google Messages reached 1 billion downloads in May 2020 and 5 billion in September 2023. Samsung significantly contributed to the current doubling, as it started prioritizing Google Messages over its own app on its Galaxy phones. The American operator Verizon acted similarly.

An important milestone was also Apple’s adoption of RCS in September 2024, which further supported the relevance of Google Messages as the default RCS client on Android. At I/O 2025, Google revealed that over 1 billion RCS messages are sent daily in the US alone.

Google Phone Close Behind

Along with Messages, the Google Phone app is also celebrating success, having recently surpassed 5 billion downloads. Although the latest features are often exclusive to Pixel phones, all users can enjoy features like caller ID cards or the new Material 3 Expressive design.

Both apps are thus among the absolute top of the Play Store. In the 10 billion download category, we find, for example, YouTube, Gmail, Chrome, Google Maps, and Google Photos.

Do you use Google Messages as your main messenger?

Source: 9to5Google