14 DAY TRIAL // Distimo, a company that provides mobile application store analytics, has issued its latest report that looks at the emerging trends among the most popular app stores, including Apple’s and Google’s.
Based on their latest research, Distimo says that Google’s Android Market downright “eclipses” the Apple App Store for iPhone in terms of free applications.
While Apple offers 121,845 free applications, Google has 134,342, they’ve found.
We wouldn’t call the difference of just 12,497 applications as something that has the potential to propel the Android application store ahead of Apple’s any time soon, but the numbers are, nonetheless, noteworthy.
Also found by Distimo was that Apple’s iPhone section of the App Store is the largest in terms of all applications available, and that "it was among the slowest growing stores in terms of relative growth in March."
Of course, everyone tracking Apple up close knows that its App Store was the first real attempt to turn create a widely successful system of digital downloads.
In 2008 (when Apple launched the service), no one from tech bloggers to Wall Street analysts believed the concept would prove so ‘insanely’ great. Not to mention that Google, RIM, and Nokia didn’t even have one. Some, not even on their roadmap.
So it’s not too difficult for competitors like Google, for example, to convince ‘Androids’ to visit their own shops three years and billions of Apple downloads later, is it now?
Regardless of its low relative growth, the Apple App Store for iPhone was still second only to Google in terms of absolute growth figures, Distimo added, in their April report.
With 75,755 iPad applications developed by 21,975 publishers, daily downloads in the Top 100 Overall paid and free applications for iPad combined exceed 500,000, Distimo also found.
The daily revenue in the Top 100 paid is approximately $400,000, according to the analytics firm. This excludes in-app purchases.
They also learned that many of the top iPad publishers are already publishing cross-platform.
Some 58% of the 50 most popular publishers have already developed applications for non-Apple platforms, Distimo said.
Also noteworthy, in Distimo’s opinion, was that iPad apps have steadily become more expensive, since the company first started tracking the iPad App Store.
In fact, they’ve observed a trend in the opposite direction when looking at other application stores.
The number of titles featuring in-app purchases has also declined over time.
“This is likely because the games category (which has generally had a high in-app purchase adoption rate) has lost some of its prominence to other categories,” Distimo’s theory goes.
To get the full scoop on Distimo’s latest app store analysts, visit the company here. To download the goods in PDF format, a free subscription will be asked of you.