40,000 Windows Phone 7 Apps & Growing [Windows Phone Marketplace Has Passed 40,000 Apps & is Expected to Reach 50,000 by Year End]

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In today’s smartphone industry, the ecosystem can make or break a platform. Apple was first to market with its App Store and leads the game in terms of volume. Android Market comes in a close second. Will Microsoft be able to catch up soon?

There’s an app for everything. Well, that is if your smartphone supports an ecosystem that has a big enough developer ecosystem to churn out apps in various categories, be it gaming, productivity, communications, utilities, and the like. This is why people flock to iOS and Android. Who would want to buy a $400 smartphone or tablet if you can’t have access to a good selection of apps.

This is why Microsoft is touting the growth of its Windows Phone Marketplace, which All About Windows Phone estimates to have currently surpassed 40,000 applications, and growing every day. Growth has seemed to accelerate, with 10,882 of these apps added in the past three months, and about 4,770 added in the past 30 days alone.

Of these, 85% are apps, while 15% are mobile games. 68% of the apps available in Marketplace are free, with the rest charging a nominal amount for purchase, or offering limited access for free. WP7 apps are estimated to reach the 50,000 mark by early January, although this can be achieved even before the year ends, if the ecosystem’s daily addition of 165 new apps can hold up. Not everything is available everywhere, though, as some apps are region-specific. Also, about 5,500 of the total applications have either been removed by the developer or Microsoft itself.

As a point of comparison, Apple’s App Store reached the 50,000 mark 11 months after launch, while Android Market reached 50,000 apps in 18 months. Microsoft is set to reach 50,000 just 14 months after launch, which means it has the potential to grow faster than Android Market, although at this point, the WP7 ecosystem’s growth will be heavily dependent on the success of Mango handsets like the Nokia Lumia series. The platform is likewise expecting a boost in the U.S. market with AT&T being in talks with Nokia to bring in the Lumia series to U.S. consumers by 2012.

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