App wars
Android users have downloaded over 1bn applications, while the number of apps available has doubled in just two months.
While the figures have not yet been confirmed by Google, statistics from AndroLib, including a real-time counter, show the 1bn app download threshold has been passed, but it does not state whether that number includes application updates as well.
The number of new applications available on the platform in July seems set to be the biggest yet, with over 11,000 already added this month. The figures confirm a steady increasing trend in the amount of apps added monthly, with over 14,000 in May and 15,000 added in June.
Amazingly, Android breached the 50,000 app market mark in the latter days of April, approximately doubling the size of its marketplace in about two months.
Google's open source platform has also shown remarkable web traffic growth, according to mobile ad network Millennial Media's monthly ‘Mobile Mix' report. The company says it monitors over 80 percent of the US' 72m web users.
The report found Android ad requests soared by 23 percent month-on-month, notching up a massive 439 percent rise since January. Meanwhile, Apple ad requests have rocketed by 36 percent month-on-month, with iPad requests increasing by a staggering 206 percent in June. RIM ad requests have also seen a healthy gain of 6 percent month on month, an increase of 41 percent since January.
Apple's OS dominated smartphone operating systems in terms of ad impressions, clocking up a 56 percent market share and recording 8 percent growth month-on-month.
However, while Android's OS attracted 11 percent of impressions, the figure was down by 4 percent from May. RIM accounted for 17 percent of ad impressions in June, also shedding 2 percent since the last month.
While Apple scooped the largest share of ad impressions across the smartphone manufacturers, up 4 percent to 30 percent in June, Motorola beat HTC and LG to climb into fourth position on the back of its successful Droid launch, according to the report. It managed to command an 8 percent share of impressions for June.
