14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft Edge for Android has just reached the 1 million downloads figure only one week after the browser was released to users as a stable version.
Edge, however, launched with approximately 500,000 downloads from the Google Play Store after originally being available as a preview version of the browser.
The 1 million downloads threshold, however, is living proof that Microsoft is very keen on becoming a top software company on rival mobile platforms, especially after the firms confirmed that Windows phones wouldn’t be getting any new features or hardware in the short term.
Microsoft Edge originally launched on Windows 10 in July 2015, but adoption on the PCs has barely improved since then. Right now, approximately 5 percent of PC users are running Edge, while Google Chrome is the top choice with no less than 60 percent.
Next stop, 5 million downloads
Microsoft originally promised to start looking into bringing Edge on non-Windows platforms after the browser became mature enough on PCs, and since the application is now alive and kicking on Android and iOS, we can assume that the company is pretty satisfied with where the Internet Explorer successor is.
The Google Play store does not provide precise figures on the number of downloads an application has, but it does offer some estimates of the number of installs, and now Edge has between 1 million and 5 million hits. Obviously, it’ll take longer for the browser to reach 5 million downloads on Android, but this isn’t impossible, especially with all the improvements that Microsoft is making to the app with every update.
The Android version could also boost adoption of the browser on PCs, as it includes features like password synchronization between devices. This feature works with PCs running the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update and requires a Microsoft account to use the power of cloud for syncing.
You can download the Microsoft Edge APK from Softpedia to install the browser on your Android device as well, and we’ll let you know when new updates become available.