According to Distimo, Android has surpassed the active app milestone of 400,000 in the Android Market. And with over 100,000 active app publishers that contribute to its staggering active apps total, it is not surprising for Android to achieve such feat. However, at least two-thirds of all the 400,000 apps titles are offered for free which could be related to the typically lower spending of Android users on paid applications compared to its iOS counterpart.
Although it took a bit longer for Google to achieve the 200,000 mark compared to Apple (thirty-one months over twenty two), the growth of Android Market significantly accelerated after that. More than four months has to pass before Google was able to reach 300,000 and another four to achieve the 400,000 milestone. Apple on the other hand achieved each milestone eight and seven months respectively.
Last October, Google was reported to have up to a half million app submissions although about 315,000 only actually stayed on the Android Market. But the overall numbers of registered active apps are being constantly pared back as malware, rogue apps, and other apps with infringed titles are being removed. Google exerted significant efforts to improve the seemingly hesitance of Android users to purchase paid application in previous months. One of these efforts is the Android Market 10 Billion Promo which was introduced last December. This promo offered a number of titles for $0.10 only with the hope that the significant price cut will be enough to encourage owners with devices running on Android to register their credit cards and start a habit of actually paying for software.
With the significant growth in Android apps downloads, Android remains the fastest growing platform. About 46.9% of smart phone users in U.S. alone have an Android handset. This number is just for three months last year before ending on the 30th of November. The 46.9% is about 3.1% points greater compared to the previous three months of market share for Google’s Android. The achievement of Android of its 400,000 active apps milestone has long been expected ever since Google’s Android became second with Apple’s iOS in terms of popularity among publishers and device owners.
The growing line of devices relying on Android is also a contributor for its success. As more and more tablet and smart phone manufacturers use Android as their OS platform, this number is expected to increase on the second half of this year.
