Smartphone field to reach 1 million active apps
updated 03:10 pm EST, Fri December 2, 2011
Smartphones to reach one million app milestone
Real-time app tracker and analytics engine Mobilewalla believes that the number of mobile apps for smartphones will reach the one million milestone sometime next week. Between iOS, Android, BlackBerr, and Windows Phone 7 devices, there are now 987,863 unique apps available, the company reckoned. An average of 2,000 new apps are added to the marketplace every day.
By its count, Apple has 590,138 apps, or 59.95 percent of the total, with Android a distant second at 320,315 (32.54 percent). BlackBerry has 43,544, or 4.42 percent, and Windows last with 35,479, or 3.6 percent.
Mobilewalla Executive chairman Anindya Datta called this an astonishing accomplishment and the fastest growing consumer segment in the history of commerce.
The App Store launched in July of 2008 and is widely considered the template for the modern smartphone app store, catalyzing a market that had stayed still. Until Apple's approach, app stores were almost always run by either the carrier or a third-party chain, either of which usually gave developers a low royalty and sometimes blocked apps that would compete with the carrier's.
