Google Duo surpasses 5 million installs in a week

One of Google’s prized efforts displayed at this year’s I/O was Duo, a new and simplified approach to video chatting on Android (historically handled on Hangouts). The official release finally dropped on the Play Store last week, and some may be wondering how the Android world took to it. We even expressed our skepticism on the new platform succeeding.

Well, it appears that you’re not the only one infatuated with Duo’s refined interface and live caller preview. The software giant’s CEO, Sundar Pichai, let us know via a tweet that Duo is off to a great start, by achieving over 5 million Android downloads in a week. That’s promising for a newcomer video chat app that jumps into the fray of established platforms (Facebook Messenger, Snapchat, Whatsapp, etc.), and the more people on board the better chances the person you want to Duo with will have it.

One other piece of news that was shared regarding Duo is that an update to version 1.0.1 is en route, containing a ‘few key bug fixes’. We’re still seeing the original release in the Play Store (at the time of this writing), so check back for it. How has your experience with Duo been in your first week with it? Is it as fabulous as was pictured, or does Google have some kinks to work out first?