Appstore: 1.5 billion downloads. How many active apps?

The number is impressive. 1 year later, The Appstore has reached 1.5 billion applications downloaded. 65k apps, 100k developpers (for me the real impressive number is that one).

But the real number i am interested to know about is the number of active apps, meaning the number of apps that have been downoaded and used during the last 30 days. Only Apple can provide this data and this is actually the only data that matters. My guess is that less than 30% of those 65k are really use actively at best. But i have no way to sustain it.

I am personally not interested in the cumulated number of downloads of the applications that have X versions. I am not interested in the number of applications that have been downloaded and never used or tried then deleted. I am not interested in the number of downloads of apps that have been discontinued or not maintained by their creators.

Like for Software the number of downloads is not interesting. It definitely translates a trend of interest. But not the real level of activity.

I remember that at ICQ the company was proudly announced 200 million+ downloads. But at the end of the day only 10-20 million of active users were to be counted. And those matter because those are monetizable. The rest is pure dust.

I think a lot of the incative download has to do with the fact that users can't find relevantly what matters to them. This is why we created Appsfire. So people can find via their peers Apps that are likely to be interesting for them. Over time we ll evaluate if the download apps via Appsfire have a better chance to be used or not.

In any case hats off to Apple who is for now showing the way to the mobile industry. Every player now think Appstore: from Device manufacturers to OS like Windows or Android and even to Mobile operators.


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