The Windows Phone marketplace is 90,000 strong and counting. According to All About Windows Phone, AAWP, the marketplace recently surpassed 92,383 apps published –24,371 were published within the last three months and 7,409 published in the last month alone.
The market is also continually expanding. In April, an average of 340 apps was added to the marketplace every day. Even with all these new apps, Microsoft stressed quality over quantity. To help accomplish getting all these quality apps, the marketplace had to rely on over 20,000 developers. Additionally, it has offered all kinds of incentives for its developers to make more apps.
While 90,000+ apps are published, not all apps are available in a given market. “In common with other application stores, the total number of published items is not the same as the number of items available to consumers,” said Rafe Blandford of AAWP in an article. “Of the 92,383 items published to the Marketplace, just over 10,500 are no longer available (removed by Microsoft or withdrawn by the publisher).” Additionally, not all apps are published in every country.
“There is a perception that Windows Phone is missing big name apps (e.g. Instagram, Words with Friends, Angry Birds Space),” said AAWP in an earlier article. “As the Windows Phone Marketplace moves towards 100,000+ apps, we expect to see a shift away from quantity metrics to quality metrics when assessing and commenting on app stores. This is overdue, but caution must be exercised as there can be a tendency to focus on the presence or absence of individual apps, rather than the overall picture.”
However, as Windows Phone gains popularity, bigger name apps, such as DrawSomething, are more likely to join the platform. The added exclusivity of some of the Lumia 900 apps are an excellent indication of the platform gaining ground.
With the marketplace gaining roughly 300+ apps per day and the announcement of some new key games, Windows Phone marketplace should be surpassing the 100,000 app point soon. With all these new apps, the platform has a greater chance to gain market share.
Source: AAWP
