Google Play’s app marketplace is losing apps.
From the start of 2024 to the present, the Android app marketplace went from hosting about 3.4 million apps worldwide to just around 1.8 million, according to a new analysis by app intelligence provider Appfigures. That’s a decline of about 47%, representing a significant purge of the apps that have been available to Android users globally.
The decline is not part of some larger global trend, the firm also notes. During the same period, Apple’s iOS App Store went from hosting 1.6 million apps to now just around 1.64 million apps, for instance — a slight increase.
In Google’s case, the decline in apps could be a relief for Android device owners who have had to sort through scammy, spammy, and otherwise poor-quality apps to find the best ones to install. The reduction could also help developers who have had to fight for visibility.
Over the years, Google Play’s less stringent requirements for app review have led to the marketplace being overrun with lower-quality apps. While Apple continues to enforce strict app review measures before publication, Google often relies on automated checks combined with malware scans to speed up the app-review process. It tends to have a shorter app-review period as a result of its lighter touch in terms of human review.
In July 2024, Google announced it would raise the minimum quality requirements for apps, which may have impacted the number of available Play Store app listings.
Instead of only banning broken apps that crashed, wouldn’t install, or run properly, the company said it would begin banning apps that demonstrated “limited functionality and content.” That included static apps without app-specific features, such as text-only apps or PDF-file apps. It also included apps that provided little content, like those that only offered a single wallpaper. Additionally, Google banned apps that were designed to do nothing or have no function, which may have been tests or other abandoned developer efforts.
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Reached for comment, Google confirmed that its new policies were factors here, which also included an expanded set of verification requirements, required app testing for new personal developer accounts, and expanded human reviews to check for apps that try to deceive or defraud users.
In addition, the company pointed to other 2024 investments in AI for threat detection, stronger privacy policies, improved developer tools, and more. As a result, Google prevented 2.36 million policy-violating apps from being published on its Play Store and banned more than 158,000 developer accounts that had attempted to publish harmful apps, it said.
One factor Google didn’t cite was the new trader status rule enforced by the EU as of this February, which began requiring developers to share their names and addresses in the app’s listing. Those who failed to do so would see their apps removed from EU app stores. (It’s worth pointing out that Apple also began requiring trader status information in February and did not see a decline in available apps as a result.)
Appfigures additionally notes it began seeing a decline in the number of apps on the Google Play Store even before the official start of the purge last summer; it doesn’t yet have an explanation for this change. However, the firm says there have been 10,400 releases on Google Play so far this year, up 7.1% year-over-year as of April.
