GOOGLE IS beginning to bridge the “app gap” between its Android smartphones and Apple’s rival iPhone, as figures reveal users are downloading one billion software applications per month on each of the two platforms.
A vibrant ecosystem of apps – small, cheap downloads offering add-on features and internet services – is seen as vital to customers’ smartphone choices, as market leaders Apple and Google face renewed competition from Microsoft and Nokia.
In a blogpost yesterday, Google touted a milestone of 10 billion apps downloaded from Android Market since it launched in 2008, up from six billion in June, with the current growth rate at one billion apps per month.
Mobile developers say Google still lags far behind Apple in generating revenue from apps, in spite of Android’s much larger user base. In October, Apple said that iOS customers had downloaded 18 billion apps on iPhones, iPads and iPod touches, over a longer period than Google’s total. Apple has more than 200 million customers’ payment details thanks to its longstanding iTunes music and movie download service. – (Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2011)
