Clubhouse is an invitation-only drop-in audio social networking app that was launched exclusively for iOS in April 2020. On May 21st, 2021, Clubhouse announced that their app was officially available to Android devices. In this blog post, we compare both launches and discuss the state of the social audio landscape.

Back in February, we analyzed how Clubhouse was performing across global iOS app markets. At the time, the drop-in audio app was something of a mystery. It introduced a novel concept for digital communications and engagement and leveraged an invitation-only model that gave it an air of exclusivity. What’s more, while it was being championed by the likes of Elon Musk, Marc Andreesen, and Mark Zuckerberg, some countries were busy blocking the app for local users. Needless to say, this only added to the app’s mystique.

However, when we wrote our analysis, Clubhouse was only available to iOS device users. So today, following the launch of the Android version of the Clubhouse app, we wanted to revisit the topic. In this blog post, we’ll examine the following (click the links below to skip to the relevant section):

• Total Android Downloads to Date
• Clubhouse’s iOS Launch vs Android Launch
• Clubhouse’s Global Top Chart Rankings
• Drop-In Audio Competitors
  
  

Total Android Downloads to Date

Let’s start with the basics, the total global downloads for the Android version of Clubhouse. As of June 16th, 2021, Clubhouse has over 5,000,000 downloads on Google Play. Check it out:

Surprisingly, while the plurality (43%) of these downloads came from India, Iran and other MENA countries represent a huge portion of Clubhouse’s total Android downloads.

Clubhouse’s iOS Launch vs Android Launch

Moving on. Let’s take a look at the respective launches of the Android and iOS versions of Clubhouse.

Clubhouse’s iOS Launch:

The iOS version of Clubhouse was released in April 2020. However, it wasn’t until mid to late January that downloads began taking off, reaching a peak of 901,081 downloads on February 14th, 2021. Incidentally, this is the same day that Elon Musk, Technoking of Tesla, invited Russian President Vladamir Putin to join him for a conversation on Clubhouse. 

Clubhouse’s Android Launch:

The story of the Android launch is a bit more straightforward. Having already built up a user base on iOS, all it took was a single tweet on May 21st, 2021 to get things going. On June 3rd, 2021, the Android version of Clubhouse received 276,565 global downloads.

Clubhouse’s Global Top Chart Rankings

Next up, global top chart rankings. These are the countries where the Clubhouse app is performing best in terms of total downloads, download velocity, recent downloads, ratings and reviews, user retention, etc.

Clubhouse’s iOS Top Chart Rankings:

Currently, the iOS version of Clubhouse has broken into the top 100 iOS apps in India, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates. It’s also performing well in Thailand, Singapore, Australia, Lebanon, and Nigeria, where it’s ranked among the top 200 apps overall.

Clubhouse’s Android Top Chart Rankings:

Despite being launched only recently, the Android version of Clubhouse continues to perform well. Right now, it’s ranked among the top 100 overall Android apps in the United Arab Emirates, India, Iran, and Singapore.

Drop-In Audio Competitors

Clubhouse’s success has not only captured the imagination of millions of users worldwide, it’s also inspired some copycats. Twitter, for example, launched Spaces in November 2020, and just a few days ago, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg hosted the first test of Live Audio Rooms in the United States. Discord and Telegram have also jumped into the fray, with Stage Channels and Voice Chats 2.0.

In fact, as if to illustrate our point, while we were writing this blog post, Spotify announced the release of Greenroom, their own Clubhouse competitor. And others appear to be on the way as well. Slack and LinkedIn announced in March 2021 that they were building their own offerings.

So, Clubhouse appears to have been on to something. And as tech companies from across industries concoct their own social audio solutions, it’ll be interesting to see which ones end up being stickiest.

But before you assume Facebook, Twitter, and some of these other social media giants will end up walking away victorious, it’s worth remembering that part of the appeal of Clubhouse in the first place was that it was something of an outsider. Indeed, as allegations of algorithmic censorship and biased manual reviews continue to plague Big Tech, the unfettered and unassociated nature of Clubhouse may help it carry the day.

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