Android Market Has 30,000 Apps

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A Google representative has disclosed that the Android Market offers up a whopping 30,000 in free and paid applications on it’s website. The Android Market is seeing awesome growth. It hit 10,000 apps in September 2009. Google reportedly had 15,000 in December 2009. And just three months later, the number of apps has doubled.

It’s no secret that Apple’s iTunes App Store, with its draconian and mysterious approval process, is despised by many in the tech community. With a much more lax approval process, the only known occasion of apps being removed from the Android Market is a few tethering apps that T-Mobile US didn’t like on their network. While it’s notable that the Android Market is seeing huge growth, another thing to remember is that Android users can install applications from non-app store locations – unlike the iPhone.

Although Android is much more open than the  iPhone OS, Apple is still the king of the online app market. While Android Market offers 30,000 apps, the iTunes App Store offers 140,000 different apps – a difference of roughly 5 to 1. Note that the iPhone OS was out for a bit longer than Android was.

Website AndroLib speculates that the ratio of free to paid apps on the Android Market is roughly 39% paid vs. 61% free. With iTunes’ strict app approval process becoming more and more criticized and well known – some have taken to calling the Android Market the refuge where unapproved iTunes apps go.

No matter how anybody feels about the Android-iPhone debate, the Android market is seeing incredible growth. A research firm, research2guidence, as reported by TechCrunch, says that the mobile app market will make $15 billion by 2013.