Windows Phone reportedly passes 50,000 apps
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Microsoft’s Windows Phone operating system has reportedly passed 50,000 published apps, hitting the milestone just 14 months after its launch.
The 14-month time frame for 50,000 apps is second only to Apple’s iOS, which hit 50,000 published apps in 12 months, according to a report from All About Windows Phone, a website that tracks Windows Phone apps and hosts a Windows Phone app directory as well.
Google’s Android reached 50,000 apps published in its Anroid Market in 19 months, the report said.
For its part, Microsoft declined to comment on the report, neither confirming nor denying that it has passed the 50,000 mark. All About Windows Phone, a site not affiliated with Microsoft, said it compiled its data ‘from our own tracking system,’ which is also used to power its directory of Windows Phone apps.
‘It took just over a year to get to 40,000 apps, but just 40 days to add the next 10,000 apps,’ showing increased growth for the Windows Phone operating system, Rafe Blandford, who runs the All About Windows Phone site, wrote in the site’s report.
But just because more than 50,000 apps published doesn’t mean that every Windows Phone user has access to all of those apps, Blandford said.
‘Of the 50,126 items published to the Marketplace, just under 6,000 are no longer available,’ meaning they were removed by Microsoft or withdrawn by the publisher, he said. ‘In addition, some apps are only available in select markets. This means the number of available items to a consumer, in a given market, is lower than the number of published items.’
In the U.S., about 42,655 apps are available for download, the report said.
Of the apps published to the Windows Phone Marketplace storefront, about 58% are free, compared with about 69% of apps being free in Google’s Android Market and about 43% free in Apple’s iOS App Store, Blandford said.
Both Android and iOS have published about 10 times more apps than Windows Phone so far, he said, though the two rivals have been offering downloadable apps since 2008.
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-- Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+