After a year of exclusivity, Clubhouse for Android is finally here
Popular drop-in audio app Clubhouse announced on Sunday that it will finally be available for Android users on the Google Play Store as of today in the U.S. and then followed by other English-speaking countries and then the rest of the world, the company said in a statement.
Many analysts consider the move – which comes after more than a year of iOS exclusivity – to be Clubhouse’s attempt to increase their market share, while boosting their userbase to face the on-going competition from Big Tech firms.
“Our plan over the next few weeks is to collect feedback from the community, fix any issues we see and work to add a few final features like payments and club creation before rolling it out more broadly,” the company said in a blog post.
However, it is important to note that the drop-in audio app will retain its invite-only model for now, as the company considers it to be “as a part of the effort to keep the growth measured, […] ensuring that each new community member can bring along a few close friends.”
Over the summer, the company plans to begin migrating what it says are millions of iOS users who have been waitlisted while the company built the app’s infrastructure.
Despite Clubhouse’s exclusivity, the app has skyrocketed this year after being downloaded 11.4 million times as of March 1, according to App Annie, up from 3.5 million the month prior; analysts predict that Clubhouse for Android will further continue its rise in popularity.
The company was also recently valued at $4 billion, with Twitter previously attempted to takeover the platform, but talks later broke down for undisclosed reasons.
Clubhouse is also facing tough competition from all corners of the Big Tech world with Discord adding Stage Channels, and Facebook, Spotify, Slack, LinkedIn, and Reddit all at varying stages of adding similar audio-only features to their services.
The company highlighted in its release the unexpected rise of its platform.
“This had its downsides, as the load stressed our systems—causing widespread server outages and notification failures, and surpassing the limits of our early discovery algorithms,” the post stated. “It made us shift our focus to hiring, fixing, and company building, rather than the community meetups and product features that we normally like to focus on.”
After a year of none-stop success, Clubhouse is currently focusing on on-boarding content creators across the aisle, as it previously setup an industry first creator advisory panel – which will be comprised of a seven-member committee of professionals across various sectors working together to establish the industry’s highest standards for professional and personal growth for all talent collaborating with it.
You can download Clubhouse for Android here.