Windows 8 store adds 7,000 apps in two weeks to pass 20,000 mark, almost 18,000 are free
The Windows Store in Windows 8 has passed 20,000 apps. It's not clear exactly when it happened, but Win App Update, which keeps track of the totals, posted on Thursday that the milestone was likely reached on Tuesday.
Context & Ripple Effects
Microsoft is running a familiar playbook on a new screen. The Windows Phone Marketplace hit 10,000 apps in March 2011, passed 50,000 by December 2011, and reached 100,000 by June 2012 — so the Windows Store crossing 20,000 just two weeks after Windows 8's late-October launch reads as the same developer-recruitment machine pointed at the desktop.
The composition matters as much as the count: nearly 18,000 of the 20,000 are free, echoing the free-content skew that defined the phone marketplace a year earlier. Third-party trackers like Win App Update, not Microsoft itself, are calling the milestone — a sign the company is letting the numbers speak through the enthusiast ecosystem.
First-order effects
- Developers who shipped early Windows 8 apps gain outsized discoverability in a thin catalog, while the near-90% free share sets buyer expectations that paid pricing will be hard to sustain on the new store.
- Microsoft gets a concrete counter to the pre-launch criticism that Windows 8 lacked apps — the number it can cite to consumers and OEMs deciding whether to push touch hardware this holiday season.
Second-order effects
- Apple and Google's stores become the implicit benchmark every Windows Store milestone is measured against, forcing Microsoft to keep publishing growth proof rather than letting the narrative settle on 'no apps.'
- PC makers betting on Windows 8 convertibles and tablets get a faster-improving software story to sell against iPad and Android slates, where catalog depth was their weakest talking point.
Third-order effects
- If the phone-marketplace trajectory repeats, app-count milestones become the standard public scoreboard for any new OS platform's viability, pressuring every platform holder to subsidize or fast-track developer ports at launch.
- A desktop store dominated by free titles pushes Windows toward a services-and-distribution revenue model rather than per-app sales — a structural shift in how the OS itself monetizes.
The trend: Microsoft is transplanting its Windows Phone Marketplace growth playbook to the desktop, turning app-count milestones into the primary scoreboard for whether Windows 8 can attract a real developer ecosystem.