Android Marketplace Reaches 20,000 Apps, Soon To Burst Forth

It had to happen sometime and boy is it ever happening fast. Yes, the Android Marketplace is growing like the iTunes App Store. It has doubled its total number of apps  in just 5 months and the store is currently growing at the superfast pace of about 100 apps/day. Now that’s some serious growth spurt.

With this achievement, Android and hence Google close in on Apple both in terms of quality and quantity of mobile apps. Android is fast becoming an extremely compelling platform that is second only to the iPhone. And even that is debatable at the current moment. There is not telling how much Apple’s iPhone will change in the coming months but currently, Android is catching up and it is catching up fast.

Androlib.com has been keeping track of Android activity since day 1 and now they have some great analytics to show for it. The graphs that you see here are all from Androlib. As you can see, the marketplace more or less exploded in the past 5 months, taking the total number of apps to double of what it was. It is no coincidence though — this is the same period through which Android phones were released one after another. Looks like Google’s promise that the Android is about to explode wasn’t all the far fetched after all.

The marketplace is likely to see a lull during the holiday season in terms of new apps entering but what happens after that will be extremely exciting. Android already has a lot of mass market phones and the one super phone — Droid. Come next year, we will see a lot of great new Android phones from HTC, especially the HTC Bravo — another SnapDragon powered phone. There’s also the XPERIA X10 from Sony Ericsson that is supposed to start shipping sometime in Q1 2010.

Then of course, we have the big Tamale — Google’s own Nexus One phone. The one Android phone that has everything that Google wants and the one phone that Google has full control over. Of course, everyone’s expecting great things from it. Once this hits the market, the Android will surely rise above most others and may be even the iPhone. But that’s a strong may be because now that Android has finished catching up to the iPhone, Apple is probably getting ready to unleash its next greatest mobile phone on us and this time they will make sure that the iPhone is extra enticing and great the playing field is leveling out fast.

With so much happening on the platform and people taking to the Android easily, it is an easy calculation for app devs. Add to that the fact that Apple’s app approval policy is less than popular and you will see why many devs would rather choose the Android Marketplace. There also used to be the incentive of a smaller catalogue that mean better exposure and a higher probability of selling. I say ‘used to be’ because with so many apps getting released all the time, it no longer holds true.

So over all, Q1 2010 will very likely see another explosion in the Android Marketplace and this time Apple better be ready to take on this fast multiplying robot. It will soon be everywhere, albeit in different forms. If you really want the greatest Android phone for your personal use, just wait till early next year. The market will have more choices in the high-end Android segment than ever before in the history of Android. So it willbe the right time for both buyers and developers. [read]