Tracking growth: the iTunes app store vs Google Play
There are now more than 675,000 apps available in Google Play, a noteworthy figure not for the number of apps, but because it means Android is now within striking distance of overtaking iOS as the mobile operating system with the most apps.
Context & Ripple Effects
Google Play's catalog is approaching iOS app parity as Android's installed base expands: Android had reached 400 million activations in June 2012 and was adding about 1 million per day. The catalog count turns device growth into a more direct challenge to iOS's developer and consumer appeal.
The significance is not app volume alone, but the narrowing platform-selection gap. Android's 49% mobile OS share in May 2012 gives developers a large addressable base to weigh against iOS when deciding where to build and maintain apps.
First-order effects
- Android users gain a catalog that is close enough to iOS's scale to make app availability less of a platform disadvantage for Google Play.
- Developers evaluating Android must treat Google Play as a near-peer distribution channel by catalog breadth, rather than a secondary store defined by a thinner selection.
Second-order effects
- Apple faces greater pressure to differentiate the App Store through app quality, discovery, and developer economics rather than catalog size alone.
- Google Play's expanding inventory raises the value of its store policies and developer tools, since a larger catalog makes governance and discoverability more consequential.
Third-order effects
- The mobile-platform contest is shifting from whether Android can attract enough apps to how Apple and Google manage increasingly comparable developer marketplaces.
- If catalog parity holds, platform competition will depend more heavily on ecosystem execution—distribution rules, developer support, and the user experience of finding software—than on raw app counts.
The trend: Mobile OS competition is moving toward app-store parity in scale, making marketplace governance and developer economics the next differentiators.