Google has been in the race for almost everything, but still needs to patiently wait to reach supremacy in many cases. In case of its OS, Android, has achieved its first big mark as its app download list has hit 10bn. That is a long journey, but still it is no close to the Apple app download count, which is already more than 18bn. So, its hard work for Google, but still, achievement is sometime it would like to rejoice.
In the Android app download list, games comprise of the biggest chunk. More than 2.5bn downloads has been for games, since the launch of Google’s Android Market store. This means that it takes a 25.6% share of the store’s first 10bn downloads.
Talking about the milestone, Google noted that they reached the 10bn mark on 6 December. It even added that the Market is currently generating 1bn new downloads a month. The credit for the same has to be given to the number of Android-powered devices, which are in the market. Last month, there was an announcement that there are more than 200m Android devices that have been activated, along with 550,000 more coming online every day.
The company even had an infographic published on its Android Developers blog, which dig deep into the Android Market data. It even includes the claim that the most popular time to download apps from the store is 9pm on Sundays. Thats quite specific for an analysis.
Talking about the charts, there was yet another chart for the “Top 10 Most App-crazed countries” ranked by downloads per capita. Surprisingly, South Korea tops the list, which is followed by Hong Kong, Taiwan, the US, Singapore, Sweden, Israel, Denmark, the Netherlands and Norway.
Next on the list is entertainment, the second most popular app category in terms of downloads. It accounts for a 12.2% share. It is followed by Tools and Communication, which have a 11.17% and 6.45% share respectively. But here the competition among the categories stiffens as Productivity, Personalisation, Music & Audio and Social all take a share higher than 4%.
Briefing about the time spent on using these Android apps, the stats noted that 1.87m hours have been spent using the Android IMDb app in the last four months, while 12bn miles are navigated on Google Maps every year; nearly 1.8m Adele songs have been tagged using Shazam; and 4,054 years have been notched up in the Talking Tom app.
The downloads are on a rise, but it seems the search engine giant’s chairman Eric Schmidt is all out to boast about the achievement as they noted that the appeal of Android for app developers in 2012 will be on much more next year. At the Le Web conference this week, he noted that he expects more companies to focus on Android alongside or even ahead of iOS next year, as Google’s new Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) software update seems to be in demand, over the iOS 5.
According to CNET, Schmidt said, “Ultimately, application vendors are driven by volume, and volume is favored by the open approach Google is taking.” He even noted, “There are so many manufacturers working so hard to distribute Android phones globally that whether you like ICS or not – and again I like it a great deal – you will want to develop for that platform, and perhaps even first.”
Further, to entice the buyers, Google is offering 10 Android apps for $1.00. The apps listed on Google blog are those apps, which are popular ones. The list is below and it is compared with the price at which Apple is offering the same in the App Store:
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Asphalt 6 HD, price on Apple $1.
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Color & Draw for Kids, price on Apple $2
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Endomondo Sports Tracker Pro, price on Apple $4
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Fieldrunners HD, price on Apple $3
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Great Little War Game, price on Apple $3
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Minecraft, price on Apple $1
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Paper Camera, price on Apple $1
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Sketchbook Mobile, price on Apple $1
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Soundhound Infinity, price on Apple $7
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SwiftKey X, not available on Apple
One would see Google cycling its apps every day in here.