Facebook Home nets just half a million downloads so far on Android

After the giant hoopla over Facebook Home in the last couple of weeks, the company could be forgiven for thinking more than half 500,000 users would have downloaded it to see what all the fuss was about.

Well apparently, folks aren't exactly rushing to the Google Play store to download the social network's overbearing custom UI for Android, with only half a million downloads since the April 12 launch.

The company reached the landmark on Sunday, according to the Google Play listing, which TechCrunch points out pales into comparison to the 5 million downloads, Instagram gained on Android in its first 6 days.

However, there are extenuating circumstances for Facebook Home. So far it is only available on select Android devices, such as the Samsung Galaxy S3, Galaxy Note 2, HTC One X and HTC One X+.

Staggered launches

Also international launches have been staggered, with the UK launch coming on April 16.

However, there's no getting away from the fact that just 500,000 in 9 days is a poor return considering the hype that surrounded the launch.

We figured that folks would at least be downloading it to give it a whirl, even if they deactivated it straight after.

Perhaps things will pick up when the suite becomes more widely available on other Android devices?