Apple App Store cites a huge decline in total number of apps

We know that the number of spammy apps is quite larger in Google Play Store, yet the Play Store is seeing a significant increase in apps year after year, as compared to Apple App Store which is seeing a huge decline every year.

A new report has significant revelations to make, and it says that Apple App Store shrank five percent last year, whereas apps on Google Play grew by 30 percent. Apple’s App Store shrank in 2017 for the first time in a decade, starting the year with 2.2 million iOS apps but ending it with 2.1 million, according to a report from analytics firm Appfigures.

Meanwhile, Google Play is headed in the opposite direction, growing 30 percent to over 3.6 million apps. Appfigures reckons App Store’s decline is the result of Apple’s tougher enforcement of review guidelines and its clean-out of apps that weren’t updated to support 64-bit architecture.

Apple in 2016 told developers it planned to scour the App Store for apps that no longer function or meet the current review guidelines.

However, Apple’s restrictions and removals aren’t the only reasons the App Store shrank for the first time since 2008. Appfigures says new app submissions also dropped 29 percent, with developers releasing 755,000 new apps over the year. By comparison, Android developers released 1.5 million new apps, marking a 17 percent rise on 2016 submissions.

According to Appfigures, there are now about 450,000 apps that are on both iOS and Android, representing about 8.5 percent of all apps.

The US is by far the largest source of apps, accounting for 33 percent of them, while 15.9 percent are from China. The rate of apps coming from China is also on the rise, numbering just over 100,000 in 2015 but rising to 250,000 new apps in 2017.