Android Market crosses 10B downloads
Google's Android Market has exceeded 10 billion app downloads with its three-year-old app store growing at 1 billion app downloads per month.
"One billion is a pretty big number by any measurement. However, when it's describing the speed at which something is growing, it's simply amazing," Eric Chu, director of Android Developer Ecosystem, said in a blog post Tuesday. "We can't wait to see where this accelerating growth takes us in 2012."
Chu thanked Android developers who "continue to push the limits on what's possible and delight us in the process". To celebrate the milestone, Google will offer a new set of apps daily for the next 10 days, priced at 10 cents each, he said.
The latest statistic comes amid the fragmented Android mobile ecosystem which comprises the official Android Market as well as independent and third-party appstores.
Android Market was launched in October 2008 and is the closest rival to the Apple App Store, which reached 10 billion downloads in January this year--less than three years since it debuted. In July, Apple said total downloads surpassed 15 billion.
A Nielsen report earlier this month found Android to be continuing its lead over iOS as the top smartphone mobile operating system (OS).
Market analyst Ovum said in September that the increasing adoption of Android will "upset the Apple cart" as its eats away the iPhone's dominance of total downloads. In Asia-Pacific alone, it estimated there will be 1.8 billion Android apps downloaded as compared to Apple's 1.5 billion by the end of this year.
However, Android Market's open environment has had its share of criticism, particularly with regard to the presence of malicious applications.