14 DAY TRIAL // Windows 8.1 has apparently boosted users’ appetite for Metro apps, as the number of downloads recorded every day is increasing on a monthly basis.
Figures provided by Microsoft to developers and posted by TechCrunch reveal that the Windows Store has reached a 1.7 million daily downloads milestone in October, which represents an increase of 38.56 percent as compared to figures revealed in June.
According to these new statistics, users downloaded more than 1.3 million paid apps in October, while free software downloads reached 49.7 million. Overall, there were more than 51 million downloads in the Windows Store, up from 36.9 million downloads posted in June.
While that’s clearly good news for Microsoft, the Windows Store still remains way behind the App Store, Apple’s very own app repository available for iPhone and iPad users.
Estimates published by TechCrunch indicate that the Apple is getting more than 74.5 million downloads through the App Store every single day, which means that it records nearly 44 times more hits than the Windows Store.
And still, Microsoft’s own Windows Store is not doing badly at all. Microsoft has managed to sign several important deals in the last couple of months, mostly thanks to the arrival of Windows 8.1, so several large companies across the globe decided to port their apps on Windows 8.
For example, the launch of Windows 8.1 also brought an official Facebook app that gives users the chance to post messages on their walls and chat with friends straight from the Modern UI, while Twitter, Disney games, and Netflix apps are already up for grabs since earlier this year.
At the same time, VideoLAN is working to port its famous VLC Media Player to Windows 8.1 too, which means that users will soon be able to play their favorite multimedia files in the Modern UI without the need for any other software solution.