Facebook Home may have been given a big launch with all the power that the social networking giant could muster but it hasn’t really caught the attention of many Android users. According to the app’s page on the Google Play Store, Facebook Home crossed 500,000 downloads on April 21, five days after it was launched on April 16.
Although 500,000 in five days doesn’t look like a number to scoff at, it does appear insignificant when you consider that Facebook has over a billion global users and that on Android alone, it sees 66 million active users a month. Tech Crunch points out that an app like Instagram also saw download numbers that make Facebook Home’s look miniscule. For comparison’s sake, when it was launched in April last year, Instagram was downloaded more than a million times on the first day and more than five million times in six days.
However, it’s worth pointing out that unlike Instagram, Facebook Home is available on only select Android smartphones. The list of supported smartphones includes the likes of the HTC One X, HTC One X , Samsung Galaxy S III and Samsung Galaxy Note 2. Facebook has said that this list will steadily increase and include more phones from all segments. Now even though the number of supported devices looks miserably small, all of these handsets are very popular, and should have contributed at least more than 500,000 downloads of Facebook Home.
It does seem likely that it’s not just the limited hardware support that has served as a detriment to Facebook Home. User reaction to the app has also been very muted with the average user giving the app a mere two (out of five) star rating on the Google Play Store. Going through the user reviews reveals that while some users find Facebook Home worthwhile, many others have criticized it for negatively affecting battery life, limited customization options and hogging mobile data.
Hopefully, Facebook will be able to pull Home out of the bad books of Android users and help improve its visibility by quickly increasing the list of supported devices.
Sources: Tech Crunch, Google Play Store