Microsoft announced on Tuesday March 8 that the Windows Phone Market Place is home to over 9,000 applications and is averaging approximately 100 new releases per day.
The news published in an official Windows Phone Developer Blog comes off the back of the platform’s rapid expansion over the last few months. According to Electronista, the Market Place has reached the 9,000 mark in as little as three months compared RIM’s Blackberry App World, which took 18 months to hit 10,000 apps.
Despite its rapid growth, Microsoft still lags far behind leading competitors Android and iOS respectively offering over 100,000 and 350,000 apps. However, if it can maintain momentum in attracting prospective developers it could expand beyond Blackberry App World and take third place in terms of number of apps available.
According to the Blog the Windows Phone platform has over 32,000 registered developers and it attributes some of this success to its unique trial application feature. Developers can easily release a single application as a trial that can be unlocked by the user through the Market Place. Microsoft’s competitors presently don’t offer such functionality and developers often have to release separate free and paid versions of their app so that users can try before they buy.
The trial feature increases exposure to applications and results in higher turnover given that one in ten trial downloads result in a purchase and produces 1,000 per cent more revenue than paid apps that don’t include trial functionality, the blog states.
The blog also informs that Microsoft plans to keep up momentum by relaxing some of its app submission policies in response to developer feedback as well as increasing access to the Windows Phone 7 platform to publishers in more countries.
The news published in an official Windows Phone Developer Blog comes off the back of the platform’s rapid expansion over the last few months. According to Electronista, the Market Place has reached the 9,000 mark in as little as three months compared RIM’s Blackberry App World, which took 18 months to hit 10,000 apps.
Despite its rapid growth, Microsoft still lags far behind leading competitors Android and iOS respectively offering over 100,000 and 350,000 apps. However, if it can maintain momentum in attracting prospective developers it could expand beyond Blackberry App World and take third place in terms of number of apps available.
According to the Blog the Windows Phone platform has over 32,000 registered developers and it attributes some of this success to its unique trial application feature. Developers can easily release a single application as a trial that can be unlocked by the user through the Market Place. Microsoft’s competitors presently don’t offer such functionality and developers often have to release separate free and paid versions of their app so that users can try before they buy.
The trial feature increases exposure to applications and results in higher turnover given that one in ten trial downloads result in a purchase and produces 1,000 per cent more revenue than paid apps that don’t include trial functionality, the blog states.
The blog also informs that Microsoft plans to keep up momentum by relaxing some of its app submission policies in response to developer feedback as well as increasing access to the Windows Phone 7 platform to publishers in more countries.
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