Russia Becomes Second in the World for VPN App Downloads from March to July
According to data from AppMagic, a service that analyzes the mobile app market, Russia ranked second after India in the number of VPN app downloads worldwide between March and July. The increase in downloads in Russia may be linked to the growing number of popular online resources and restrictions placed on VPN services themselves.
In the first three weeks of July, VPN services were downloaded in Russia more than 12 million times (one download equals one device). For comparison, in January 2022, VPN services in Russia were downloaded 2 million times (16th place globally), and in July 2021, 2.7 million times (15th place globally).
Most Popular VPN Services in Russia
For the most popular VPN services among Russians, the Lifetime Downloads (total downloads from app stores since 2015) were as follows:
- VPN — Super Unlimited Proxy: 14.36 million downloads
- Secure VPN — Safer Internet: 12.08 million downloads
- VPN Proxy Master — Safer VPN: 10.8 million downloads
- 1.1.1.1: Faster & Safer Internet: 10.8 million downloads
- Turbo VPN — Secure VPN Proxy: 12.8 million downloads
These numbers represent between 5% and 20% of the global Lifetime Downloads for these services.
Trends in VPN Searches
According to Google Trends, the peak popularity for VPN-related searches from Russia occurred between March 13–19. After that, the number of searches decreased, with smaller spikes from May 29–June 4 and July 17–23. The highest share of users searching for VPNs on Google recently came from Moscow and the Moscow region, St. Petersburg, Kaliningrad, and Yaroslavl regions.
As reported by RBC, the most popular search queries were related to 1.1.1.1 (Cloudflare service), Lantern, Psiphon, and Super VPN (owned by the Pakistani company SuperSoft Tech).
Expert Opinions on VPN Growth
Ivan Begtin, head of the non-profit organization “Digital Culture,” believes that Russia’s second-place ranking is due to the increase in blocked internet resources and restrictions on VPN access: “Now, most people usually keep three or four VPN services on hand. In addition to paid or free services, some also rent servers in other countries.”
Stanislav Shakirov, CTO of Roskomsvoboda, suggests that the increase in downloads is mainly due to a rise in new VPN users in Russia. “We see a clear growth in users: we have our own resources through which we help people choose VPNs, and we have distributed free limited VPNs ourselves,” he said.