According to new data from third-party app intelligence firm Apptopia and Sensor Tower, Meta’s Oculus app, the mobile companion to Oculus VR devices, including the Quest 2, has had roughly 2 million cumulative downloads worldwide since Christmas.
There were already some signs that the Quest 2 was a welcome holiday gift, as the Oculus app debuted at the top of Apple’s App Store on Christmas Day and became the most popular free app on Google Play in the US.
During the week of Christmas in the US (Dec. 23-29), downloads of the Oculus app jumped 517% from a week earlier to 1.5 million installs, according to Sensor Tower. In the week that followed (December 30 to January 5), app installs dropped to 345,000, a 77% month-over-month decline.
But the figure is still 42% higher than the week before Christmas in 2021. And, these newer downloads may still include those who recently received a new Oculus device over the holidays, but haven’t had time to set it up yet.
While the U.S. accounts for the majority of post-Christmas installs, App Intelligence estimates that the app’s combined global installs on the App Store and Google Play from Christmas to now are around 2 million. Sensor Tower’s estimates in this regard are conservative, with the company saying the app will have around 1.8 million global installs between December 31, 2021, and January 5, 2022.
Meanwhile, Apptopia reports that the Oculus app has been downloaded 2.189 million times worldwide between Christmas and now. Of those more than 2 million installs, about 79 percent, or 1.727 million, were attributed to U.S. consumers, it noted.
The Oculus app, launched in April 2018, had 1.2 million downloads in its first year on the market, and then 2.4 million in 2019. Things got a little better in 2020, when the app was installed by 4.4 million consumers worldwide, according to Apptopia. In 2021, the Oculus app benefited from the Quest 2’s fall 2020 availability, with installs jumping to 10.62 million. Of these installations, the United States accounted for 7.218 million, or 68 percent.
