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Android Market Hits 10 Billion Downloads, Games Dominate

Posted by Soulskill on from the bored-begets-big-numbers dept.

New submitter sandeepabhat tips news that Android Market recently saw its 10 billionth app download, reaching the milestone less than a year after the App Store accomplished the same feat. New downloads through Android Market are proceeding at a rate of roughly 1 billion per month. Google has now created an infographic to break down the information further. Games outpace any other type of app, accounting for more than a quarter of all downloads. The top five countries in downloads-per-capita are South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, the U.S., and Singapore.

8 of 178 comments (clear)

  1. Paid Vs. Free? by stating_the_obvious · · Score: 5, Interesting

    How about a breakout of paid versus free and some idea of who's making money developing for the Andriod platform?

    1. Re:Paid Vs. Free? by NoNonAlphaCharsHere · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Google. Period.

    2. Re:Paid Vs. Free? by InsightIn140Bytes · · Score: 5, Informative

      Android apps and games are mostly free, and ad-supported. Mobile developers quickly learned that piracy on Android is much larger problem than on iPhone and that they couldn't just sell their software. That was the reason they started offering games for free and getting the revenue from advertisements. It goes well along the lines with Google too, who also recently bought the largest mobile advertising house AdMob.

      This also means that people of course download way more apps too.

    3. Re:Paid Vs. Free? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      Mobile developers quickly learned that piracy on Android is much larger problem than on iPhone and that they couldn't just sell their software.

      This certainly isn't true for me. I used to pirate all kinds of apps for Windows Mobile and for PC, but with Android it's easier to pay 99 cents for an app and get perpetual updates than to bother trying to pirate an app and keep it updated. Kind of like STEAM. I've bought a lot of apps already and I plan to buy almost all of the apps that are going on sale for 10 cents this week.

    4. Re:Paid Vs. Free? by Alter_3d · · Score: 5, Informative

      Nobody mentions Amazon's AppStore? If you can sideload it works just like Google's Market except they have more stuff that you can pay for to get rid of the adds so a developer is not tied down completely to the Android Market.

      Only useful for US Residents. The Amazon Appstore doesnt work outside the States.

  2. 10 cent downloads for 10 days by Rik+Sweeney · · Score: 5, Informative

    Just in case anyone hasn't noticed, Google are celebrating by making selected apps are available for 10 cents for the next few days (it started a few days ago so there's something like 7 days to go).

    The selection changes each day so it's worth having a look. I picked up Toki Tori today.

    --
    Summation 2
  3. Re:iPhone vs Android by Toe,+The · · Score: 4, Interesting

    At some point, app count becomes irrelevant.

    First, most good apps are on both platforms, right? But more importantly, how many thousand apps can you run on your phone? And specifically, how many thousand barcode readers do you need, for example? Quantity of apps seems quite irrelevant, especially when there is so much redundancy.

    From my experience, the distinction between the iPhone and Android is about interface. Maybe it is just because I am more used to the iPhone, but when using an Android, I find the experience to be downright hostile. It is as if I have to fight the interface to get it to do what I want.

    With the iPhone, I feel like it is working with me. There is no doubt that sometimes the iPhone tries to be "too smart" and do stuff for me that I'd rather it not do. But on the balance, I find everything about its interface to be smoother, more elegant, and a much more pleasant/productive experience.

    Given that both systems have basically the same feature set and basically the same apps, interface and industrial design are the major distinguishing factors.

    Price seems like a rather minor factor. At least in the US, price of the phone is nothing compared to the price of the service.

  4. Re:10 Billion would be 100 Billion... by VortexCortex · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Perhaps it would be easier to keep all the phones up to date if the Microsoft Patent Licensing deal didn't involve renegotiation for each new Android version that you want to install on the phone...

    Oh hey, guess what? MS charges LESS for a full install of WP7 than their bogus Android license fees. This is the same sort of behavior that got them in anti-competitive trouble LAST TIME. Funny how immediately after their DOJ anti-trust oversight expires, the ramp up the anti-competitive practices.

    I hope B & N tears them a new one.