Sure, Google is always going to get masses of their earnings from ads, but the Play Store is bringing them more and more money every year. The Play Store is continually growing and with brilliant apps and games from such a massive variety of developers, it’s hard not to see why. In Google’s earnings call yesterday, they revealed some pretty strong numbers for the Play Store. With 1.5 Million Android devices getting activated daily, the Play Store has never had such a massive audience. Apps and games are second nature to us now, we download them in our hundreds and our tablets and smartphones wouldn’t be the same without them. Now, Google Play has just passed the 50 Billion Downloads mark.
Earlier in the Summer, Google announced at this year’s I/O that 48 Billion Apps had been downloaded, with Apple claiming to have hit the 50 Billion mark. In just less than two months, Google’s online store has caught up quickly. It’s not just Google that are reaping the success of the Play Store either, as developers are seeing more downloads, and therefore more money. Larry Page confirmed that Google had paid out more money to developers in the first 6 months of 2013, than in all of 2012. That’s incredible.
App development on Android is changing, it’s becoming more uniform and apps are beginning to take on a look that people are coming to recognize as the “Android look”. Since the introduction of Holo with Android 4.0 in 2011, our apps have gotten better looking and more powerful, faster as well. This is a great time to be an Android developer and arguably an even better time to be a consumer – the Play Store doesn’t just sell apps and games anymore, it sells pretty much everything. From books to magazines and TV shows to movies, the Play Store has it all.
Who knows where the Play Store will be next year but, it looks like things are only going to go up from here.