May 9, 2011 15:11 GMT  ·  By

Google's Android Market, the storefront here all users of Android-based devices can find applications available for download for their devices, is expected to become the largest mobile app store in the world in several months, by August 2011, to be more precise.

Apparently, the fast pace at which new software is added to the portal is expected to make the help it take the leading position on the smartphone market faster than some might have expected.

In a recent post on research2guidance, Egle Mikalajunaite explains how would the Android Market manage to overcome Apple's App Store in mobile application numbers.

In October last year, the storefront already managed to gain the first position in terms of new application addition, something that would help it a lot in its goal.

“Currently it shows growth rates more than twice as high as Apple’s App Store. In April Android added 28,000 new apps, whereas Apple lagged behind with only 11,000 apps. Each market leader adds more apps to his store every month than other platforms have in total,” the said post reads.

Apparently, the rate of growth for the Android Market shows that the storefront would be able to reach a number of 450,000 applications by August this year, thus taking down Apple's software portal.

This is not the first time we learn that analysts expect Google's Android Market to become the leading app storefront in the world this year. Distimo also noted in a recent report that Apple's App Store would fall to the second position in summer.

“At the end of April 2011 the Android Market had already featured an impressive number of apps, 295,000. 64% of these apps are free, which is above average for one of the major app stores,” the post continues.

The vast majority of applications in the Android Market are free, but it seems that developers have started to shift their interest to a paid model. The average selling price of apps in the storefront went up, apparently.

However, while the app store as a whole is going up, average developers do not experience an increasing number of downloads. On the contrary, the number of downloads is decreasing after only a few weeks or months of availability

“The Android Market is clearly the most dynamic app market today with the highest growth rates in terms of app numbers, but this does not necessarily mean that the chance for an average developer to generate revenue on that platform has grown as well,” the post reads.

“All analysis on the early months of an app store including the Android Market shows that average download numbers decrease dramatically after the first months or even weeks after the launch of the store. The long tail gets longer and longer while the top 5% gets richer and richer.”

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Android Market to overtake Apple's App Store in number by August 2011
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