Windows Phone Store Doubles its App Count in 2012

The verdict is still out on whether or not Windows 8’s “Modern UI” will bode well for the OS as time goes on, but as far as the OS’ mobile counterpart is concerned, things are looking bright. During 2012, the Windows Phone app store doubled the number of entries from 75K to 150K, and in the same period, over 300K updates were issued. That latter figure actually strikes me as a bit low, as at least on Android it feels like I see 300K updates per app per year. That might be a slight exaggeration, but still… it’s up there.

According to Microsoft, the average number of apps that people downloaded totaled 54, which to me, might be even more impressive of a number than the +75K apps. While 54 apps a year may not be that big of a deal for someone addicted to their phone, most people who have a phone “just to have a phone” are not going to download nearly that many. We can only assume that the top 10% downloaders downloaded hundreds of apps to help bring that average up.

At 150,000, Microsoft’s store pales in comparison to the likes of Apple’s App Store and Google’s Play Store (that name…) which feature about 6x as many, but we can’t discredit Microsoft too much. Well, except for the fact that it jumped on the bandwagon a little bit too late. Back when Apple first took the world by storm, no one expected things to play out like they did. And despite that dominance, Google came in and competed just fine. Whether or not Microsoft’s recent successes will be “enough” is yet to be seen. We can only hope to see the trend of growth continue, as competition is oh so sweet.