In a market clearly dominated by iOS and Android, Microsoft emerges with an achievement worth celebrating.
20 months after its kick-off, Windows Phone Marketplace now has more than a 100,000 applications available to its users. According to a data from its own tracking system, an average of 313 new apps are added to the application store on a daily basis.
With contributions from roughly 24,000 different publishers, the Windows Phone Marketplace grew in popularity only during the last 5 months, with the app count doubling from 50,000. Moreover in the last month, more than 9,000 new applications were added. But despite the milestone, not all of the 100,000 are currently available in all countries. Some are available only on a regional basis, while others have been phased out. This actually means is that actually there are 88,300 apps now being offered by Windows Marketplace.
According to a survey by All About Windows Phone, entertainment is by far the largest category, with nearly 19,000 apps, followed by tools, books, and last but not the least, games.
A further analysis of the data reveals that 67% of the apps are free, 10% are paid with a free trial, and 23% constitutes the paid apps, with a majority of them priced at $0.99.
Nevertheless, as far as app stores go, App Store and Google Play continue to lead the way with over five times as many applications. And the situation isn't likely to change in the near future.