Trump's social network Truth finally launched on Google Play last week, nearly eight months after launching on the App Store in late February.
I initially called Truth's move to launch on iOS first a mistake, and now, looking at the downloads Truth is seeing on Google Play after a week, I stand by my statement.
According to our App Intelligence, Truth Social was downloaded more than 271,000 times from Google Play between 10/13 and 10/18.
That's roughly 55K downloads every day except for the first one.
The Android launch also seems to spur interest in the iOS version. Downloads on the App Store, which we estimate to average around 2K/day before the Android rollout, have doubled since, and for a single day, tripled.
I believe launching on both stores at the same time would have given Truth a lot more momentum and a lot more engagement. Splitting it up really makes it tough to build an audience. Regardless of why they didn't, not doing both was a mistake.
Maybe a calculated mistake, but a mistake nevertheless.
Will this be the spike Truth needs to make its way into the mainstream? Unlikely. Truth has seen a few spikes in downloads this year, but none were monumental or sticky enough to matter. Expanding to another platform will get more engagement, but likely from an audience that already expected it and not from new users, which is what the platform needs.
It'll need something else to get those.
December saw a curious split: downloads dropped 2% while revenue sat at $1.3B. ChatGPT and TikTok dominated both charts as the mobile industry enters a new maturity phase.
Wall Street bet $2 billion on Polymarket, and downloads surged 1,172% in December. The prediction market banned in 2022 is now where Wall Street looks for signals.