14 DAY TRIAL // It looks like mobile app stores are now near the 1 million apps available for download, analytic company and search engine Mobilewalla claims.
According to them, there are 989,476 mobile apps in various marketplaces split among major operating systems, such as BlackBerry, iOS, Android and Windows Phone.
The 1 million major milestone may be attained next week, if the level of app submission keeps the same trend of 2,000 aps entered each day.
The most important improvements in the last year have seen the Android Market rising from 115,000 to 319,774 apps, while Apple’s App Store grew from 338,000 to 589,148.
“The app race began in July, 2008 when the iTunes App store opened and Google followed with the launch of the Android operating system in October, 2008. Recently, app marketplaces have been launched for the Blackberry RIM and Microsoft Windows Phone platforms,” said Anindya Datta, the founder and executive chairman of Mobilewalla.
Currently, Apple’s App Store owns 59.95% of the applications market share with 590,148 apps, while Android Market comes in second with 32.54% and 320,315 apps.
The other two platforms that have been included in the survey are RIM’s BlackBerry App World with 4.42% and 43,544 apps and Microsoft’s Windows marketplace with 3.60% and 35,479 applications available for download.
As expected, Mobilewalla confirms that the app categories ranking system is led by the Entertainment category with 16.68% followed closely by Games with 13.36%.
The next categories in line are Lifestyle 8.02%, Utilities 7.13%, Education 7.08%, Travel 4.84%, Business 3.76%, Reference 3.73%, Music 3.32%, Health & Fitness 3.28%, Productivity 3.09%, Sports 2.925%, News 2.85% and Social Networking 2.71%.
“In the early days most of the initial apps were “fun, indie” apps, such as the Doodle Jump game, one of the first mass-market apps to gain viral popularity and paved the entryway for other mass successes like Angry Birds,” concluded Datta.