“Mobile research firm” Research2Guidance is reporting that the Android Market reached the 500,000 published app milestone this past September. In that month alone, 42,000 new apps were added to the market.
Interestingly, some 37% of apps have been deactivated since their launch, leaving some 320,000 active applications. In comparison, there were nearly 460,000 apps in the Apple App store in Q3 2011 (with a lower 24% removal rate). While no app numbers were given for the WP7 Marketplace, it has an even lower 13% removal rate but Research2Guidance points out that “it is a comparably young store and many publishers are still exploring its potential.”
It is likely that [Apple’s] more rigid application submission requirements prevent developers from publishing multiple trial or low quality applications whereas publishers in the Android Market place a lot of market testing, trials, demo and malware content.
Research2Guidance also found that Android developers have published more than 6 apps since launch compared to just over 4 apps on average for iOS developers.
Google has not made any comment so far about reaching this 500,000 app Android Market milestone.