As reported by Markets Insider, Signal saw 7.5 million downloads following WhatsApp’s announcement, a 4200% increase on the previous week. Telegram downloads surged 91%.Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, which owns WhatsApp.
- WhatsApp informed users Wednesday that they would have to start sharing some personal data with its parent company, Facebook, starting February 8.
- Data indicates this helped drive a huge spike in downloads on the rival encrypted messaging app Signal, which on Wednesday topped Google and Apple’s app stores.
- Signal saw 7.5 million downloads last week, a 4,200% increase on the previous week. Telegram, a similar app, saw 9 million downloads, a 91% increase. India was the biggest source of downloads for both.
- Signal received significant publicity following WhatsApp’s announcement, with public figures including Elon Musk and Edward Snowden endorsing the app as a WhatsApp alternative.
- WhatsApp’s rivals got a massive boost after the messaging app announced last week that it would make users share some personal data with its parent company, Facebook.
WhatsApp told users on January 6 they would have to agree to let Facebook and its subsidiaries collect WhatsApp data – including phone numbers and locations – before February 8 or lose access to the app. WhatsApp has since clarified that this affects users only outside the European Union and the UK and said that the change “does not affect the privacy of your messages with friends or family in any way.”
Data from app-analytics firm Sensor Tower shows Signal, a rival encrypted messaging service, saw an enormous surge in user numbers following WhatsApp’s announcement.
“From January 6 to January 10, Signal saw approximately 7.5 million installs globally from across the App Store and Google Play,” a Sensor Tower representative told Insider.
This represented a 4,200% increase from the previous week.On Wednesday, the app topped both Google and Apple’s app stores in the US, according to data from App Annie, the analytics company. Fox News reported the app has been top of both stores since Monday.