Google has yet another Android reason to smile. According to Distimo, Google’s Android Market hit the 400,000 application title plateau. The count again is for the active applications worldwide. Agreed, Apple is still a leader, and is growing at a faster rate, but Android apps are flourishing too. Google on the other end, even pulls out a number of illicit apps from the Android Market, as example of the same can be noted of the recent Siri for Android app, developed by ‘Official App’.
The app growth is good, but is somehow steady, as compared to the milestone last achieved. It took Google four months to achieve the last milestone, and the same time is taken to achieve this milestone. In April 2011, Google had hit the 200,000 titles in the Android Market and in August 2011, it hit the 300,000 title count.
Last month, Google had even detailed the world that the application download count has exceeded the 10 billion mark. Moreover, there are more than 200 million Android devices activated all over the world, and 550,000 activated each day.
Breaking up the app count, as free and paid, Distimo said that free applications constituted 68 percent of the total application base for the Market. Google, on its part would want the percentage to drop in the near future, as it would mean that many Android developers have been their products away, instead of selling software through the store.
The free application count was 60% in April 2011, which has jumped up to 68% now. However, that time there were only 200,000 applications in the Android Market, but now there are 400,000 applications. The rise and the concerns, regarding this problem will be in the talks of Google.
As far as Apple is concerned, they offer their developers more monetary benefits, which allows them to be further more loyal to Apple app development.
However, the chart below notes that Android and Apple has reached the 400,000 app count at the same time, well almost. The 200,000 app count difference was notable, but since then, Google has only jumped up to reach the milestones. Again, the chart is prepared by Distimo, so for the official figures, one would still have to wait.
Again, as the Apple App Store vets applications, before letting an app into the store, it restricts the illicit softwares from entering the store. On the other hand, Google’s Android Market has no such restriction, which makes it easy for users to push in illicit software . This forces Google to use the clan up van on a regular basis. Distimo, in its count, has probably not included the myriad applications that Google has yanked for violating Market policies, such as copyright or trademark infringement.
Moving ahead, Google is closing in to the half a million mark, and the way it is progressing, it is possible that there would be a news piece written by March or April, titled, ‘Google marks half a million app titles in Android Market’.