Windows Phone Marketplace passes 45,000 apps as Apple announces 500,000 for iOS

By Tom Warren, on 12th Dec 11 2:13 pm with 40 Comments

Windows Phone Marketplace

Microsoft’s Windows Phone Marketplace has now reached 45,000 applications.

The Marketplace has grown by 5,000 applications in under a month. Microsoft previously reached 40,000 apps in mid-November. All About Windows Phone, who track Windows Phone apps, report that their own software indicates 45,610 items have been published to the Marketplace. 14,261 were added in the last 90 days and 5,837 were added in the last 30 days. The apps come from over 10,000 publishers. The site estimates that the Marketplace will reach the 50,000 app mark by early January 2012 or possibly by the end of 2011.

WP7applist, a rival tracking site, is currently reporting 43,428 applications worldwide and explains 5,784 of them are inactive, 55% are available for free and the average price is $1.77 per paid application. Microsoft’s Windows Phone Marketplace is growing at a steady rate. The Marketplace passed 15,000 apps in April just in time for its six month birthday and reached 35,000 apps in October to mark a year of Windows Phone. WP7applist says that 206 apps are updated on average each day. In the last 24 hours, 72 apps were updated and 104 were added.

Apple announced on Monday that its iOS App Store has more than 500,000 apps. Apple customers have downloaded more than 18 billion apps in total and download more than 1 billion per month. Apple’s app dominance highlights the careful work Microsoft is carrying out in order to maintain a Marketplace full of quality apps. The software maker has been approaching well known iOS and Android app makers to assist them with Windows Phone variants of their applications.

Windows Phone 7 launched on October 21 with 1,000 applications available in its first week on the market. A year later and the Marketplace is growing with 40,000 apps. Microsoft appears to be building up a good momentum amongst application developers. Microsoft recently finalized its Windows Phone 7.5 “Mango” update and has distributed it to 100% of existing eligble devices. Microsoft’s device partners have also started to release a number of new Windows Phone 7.5 devices for the holiday season, including the HTC Radar, HTC TITAN and Samsung Focus S.

  • OMG55

    Can someone on this site compare the number of apps in the market place to what BB, WebOS, and Symbian have? It would be nice to see if WP7 marketplace has surpassed any of these; Lets face it, they were already at the party before MS and if we are ahead of them, it say’s a lot. We already know how we compare to the two front runners (Android & IOS), so until we hit 100k, I don’t this a comparison is necessary. 

    • Robertjj

      Agreed!

    • Anonymous

      I recall we passed webOS long ago and BB was round the 50K mark so maybe we will before the end of the year.

    • OMG55

      My point exactly, we should be pointing out the we’ve equaled or surpassed other competitor platforms in a year and are constantly growing in an effort to equal or surpass the top two: Android & Apple because when know it will be a while befor that happens.

      If we focus on competitors like webOS, BB, & Symbian, it clearly shows that the ecosystem MS has built is making progress and has exceed the ones who have tried and failed or are failing. For now, we are trying to become a third viable mobile platform and the stats compared to the others show WP7 is that platform. 

      We’ve reached the first milestone, now we have to work toward the second goal improve the OS while growing marketplace app count, adding more available devices, forcus on getting the word out (Nokia, HTC has already began this…..overseas of course), and finally increase the number of units sold.

    • Anonymous

      I think BlackBerry App World has more 50k items, that break down to three main categories, apps, themes, and games.

      More than 13K are themes so about 37K are apps and games. Also more than 12k of the apps are in the “reference and books” category (compared to about 6K for WP)

    • Anonymous

      LOL! WP7 has already blown past Symbian and WebOS by a country mile. Blackberry also has nowhere near 50,000 apss. Yes, Windows Phone has already gone past Blackberry.

    • Anonymous

      And blackberry isn’t a flaming train wreck?

  • paret

    How come the number of apps submitted during the last 30 days exceeds that of the last 90 days? 

    • Anonymous

      nokia.

    • paret

      I understand Nokia, either directly or through the developer base, may have contributed quite a number applications, but still, the statement does not make sense. 

    • http://www.winrumors.com Tom W

      I missed a vital digit there, thanks for the spot.

    • swanny78

      some web os developers and symbian developers coming across.  MS made it appealing to them;

  • Anonymous

    not bad at all. however at this point WP just needs more of the big names including skype !
    as far as growth rate, it is really doing good after just a year.

    • Seth_p

      this

    • Anonymous

      What are you talking about? They are getting them. Perhaps you’ve heard of Pandora, Spotify, etc. It’s like some of you expect every app to show up all at once.

    • Anonymous

      Someday, WP could be relevant.  

  • http://twitter.com/J88NYr Jonny Rose

    How can they have only downloaded 18 billion in total, if they are downloading on average over 1 billion per month…? The iPhone is somewhat older than 18months

    • Anonymous

      1 billion a month in the present.  It wasn’t 1 billion a month on the first iPhone release, which didn’t even have an app store anyways.  

  • Anonymous

    Correct me if I’m wrong but doesn’t MS and Apple count apps differently, MS calls the same app in 3 languages 1 app and Apple calls it 3 different apps?

    • Anonymous

      no wonder, iSuck is of of those app downloaded over & over again and has been calculated in those 1Billion & 18Billion…

    • Anonymous

      Actually, iOS numbers only show the first download, not any additional downloads to other iOS devices on the same account, or redownloads to the same device.    But go on hating guys, it’s getting MSFT back in the game (someday)

    • Anonymous

      No, you are guessing there, it’s only counted as a different app if it’s localized on some other store.   They don’t multiple count any app.  And whatever language you have set, the app will come up in that language.   But, go on hating, because you all are so great at that.

    • Anonymous

      Try and find the hate in my question.  I asked a question, asked to be corrected if what I had laid out was incorrect.  Looks like the only hate here is coming from you.

    • Anonymous

      No need to be a douche.

    • Anonymous

      What is an Apple sycophant doing on a Microsoft website? Crawl your ass back to the Apple websites.

  • Kris Turner

    I’d be more happy if there were only 45 apps in the app store and they were all of premium quality. Microsoft’s really doing themselves a disservice by making the marketplace ‘global’ to bump up the numbers as it really means the marketplace is just being flooded with Chinese spam apps (and more than a few regular spam apps).

    There are a few geeks that will choose their phone based on # of apps available, but for most people, they’re opening the spp store and looking to see how many premium apps area available. Can I get Angry Birds and Pandora ?
    That’s what really matters. For Windows Phone there is no free version of Angry Birds and there is no Pandora support; there’s also a real lack of hardware interface apps, like the Contour viewfinder, the Sphero controller, and the Parrot AR Drone controller.

    • http://twitter.com/alexh2o Alex H

      I mostly agree with what you’re saying only that it’s probably not the geeks who care about the # of apps, but rather the uninformed general consumer. It only takes a fanboi to tell someone Apple has 10x the number of apps, and suddenly they don’t want a WP!

      It’s sad that Microsoft must resort to the childish numbers game, but the reality is they have to if they want people to see WP as a viable platform!

    • Kkaaffii4

      There are free version of Angry Birds .. Go to the paid app and try it .. You will be able to  play more than 20 levels for free. Unlike iOS, the Windows Phone marketplace does not have Angry Birds Lite app .. Every app you can try (lite version) and then can buy the full version.

  • Perempt

    Still waiting patiently for the Pandora Radio application for my WP7…

    • Anonymous

       Blame Pandora.

    • Anonymous

      There are a number of unofficial Pandora apps already on Windows Phone.

  • http://twitter.com/tdemerse Trevor Demerse

    App count isn’t everything though.. When the phone has such good Facebook, Twitter, Barcode Scanning and other simmiler features, developers don’t need to make code solutions for those things. I think that that is why we might see fewer than iOS for a long time, and that’s not a bad thing really. The templates on Excel are also really handy for negating the need for apps.

    • Anonymous

       But iOS has really cool fingerpainting apps!

    • Guest

      They know their target market: people like you.

    • Anonymous

      his comment: ’twas sarcasm.

  • Anonymous

    Microsoft should focus on competing with Android, not iOS.

    • Anonymous

      Except that Android is a freaking trainwreck, and is only badly copying Apple’s stuff (normally MSFT’s job there) and iOS is definitely leading the market in any case. Marketshare for iOS is not limited to iPhone, and is far larger than Android.

  • Anonymous

    I did have an iPhone and I do have the Windows Phone
    More than a Year now (since launch). I live in the Netherlands so I had to get
    one through EBay and I have to say I still love my Windows Phone.
    But and that is a huge but (t) the apps in the marketplace
    are (not counting the XBOX LIVE games) for a large number made by uninspired
    individuals. You Can say a lot about the iPhone, but they have good quality
    apps compared to the 10.000 RSS reader and Book apps that the marketplace has.
    It’s a shame that most of the apps don’t come from
    large companies, but rather from small developers (individuals) who are just
    trying to make a quick buck.
    The quality control at Windows Phone is laughable as
    you look at the 1000+ rss apps, who are more a clone of each other than a
    addition to each other.
    Furthermore I hate the fact that Microsoft is offering
    many services to selected countries only. We in the Netherlands don’t have Zune
    Pass, TellME, Places etc. etc. I feel that a lot of the great functions enjoyed
    (and are unique selling points) are wasted in local markets only. Why is a
    company like Apple able to do this and a (at least as huge) company like Microsoft
    still struggling to deliver…

    Like I said I have the phone over a year and love the whole touch and idea put into it, but as a consumer I feel kind of left out…

    Just my 2 cents :)

  • Chris

    I wonder how many of those apps on iOS (and Andriod) are Fart Machine apps?

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Erol-Lore/100000708026532 Erol Lore

    Please support more country. My country isn’t supported so buying a WP7 phone is kinda pointless since I can’t buy apps.