For the first time in the history of the two platforms, Android has surpassed iOS in the number of apps downloaded this month, according to new numbers released by mobile metrics company App Annie.
That success, which shows downloads through the Google Play store 10 percent greater than iOS, hasn’t translated to widespread revenue for developers. There, as before, Apple remains king. According to the report, app revenue on iOS was more than twice the size of Android’s share.
Games remain the category that garnered the lion’s share of downloads and revenue for both platforms, making up 80 percent of revenue on Android, and 75 percent of revenue on iOS.
Showing the power that a single app’s massive sales can exhibit over the top charts, the social networking category on iOS and communication category on Android have each increased in popularity following WhatsApp Messenger’s massive influx of users.
While the new numbers show Android’s download share growing, I don’t think that’s indicative of a shift in the mobile status quo. Google’s mobile OS is the market share leader among mobile platforms, and has been for quite some time. For me, the question is: What took it so long to get to this point?
