BlackBerry World now contains over 130,000 BB10 apps

Vice President for Developer Relations, Alec Saunders, shared that the number of BlackBerry 10 apps available in the BlackBerry World store now stood at 131,708, approximately seven months after the OS was released. Saunders said that at a similar stage in their life cycles, the number of apps in Apple's iTunes App Store and Google's Play store stood at 17,500 and 2,908 respectively.

It's worth pointing that the app economy has grown considerably since Apple and Google debuted their app stores, and almost all platforms are now growing faster than in the past, so a time-based comparison is not a great indicator. Calculations based on recent updates by Apple and Google indicate that their stores have been adding new apps at a rate of roughly 20,000 apps per month, which is the same, or slightly better, than the growth rate that BlackBerry 10 apps have seen. Further, the total number of apps on both iTunes App Store and Play store is now nearing one million, so BlackBerry World has a long way to go in terms of matching that number.

Interestingly, BlackBerry has also been adding BlackBerry 7 apps at a rapid clip, with Saunders revealing that the total number of apps (BlackBerry 10 + BlackBerry 7 OS combined) now stood at 256,668.

Saunders also revealed that customers of 70 carriers across 46 countries can now use direct carrier billing for buying apps and other content on BlackBerry World as well as in-app purchases.

Addressing developers gathered from across the Asia-Pacific, Saunders said that 37 percent of all apps in BlackBerry World come from the region.

BlackBerry also shared additional details of the recently announced OS 10.2 SDK, and confirmed that the update will be ready for release to customer via carriers in October.

Disclosure: BlackBerry paid for our flights and hotel for BlackBerry Jam in Hong Kong.