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In context: The variety of apps obtainable on Google Play has dropped sharply over the previous yr, following a interval of intensive clean-up and stricter high quality enforcement. Removed from worrying about this streamlined and extra fastidiously curated app atmosphere, many Android customers and builders are happy with the adjustments.
The Google Play Retailer, the biggest market for Android apps, has shrunk dramatically over the previous yr. Since early 2024, its app rely has dropped from 3.4 million to 1.8 million – a 47 p.c decline. TechCrunch cites app analytics agency Appfigures, noting that this drop sharply contrasts with the Apple App Retailer, which grew barely from 1.6 million to 1.64 million in the identical timeframe.
This sudden decline will not be a part of a world pattern – it stems from Google’s push to enhance app high quality and safety. The Play Retailer allowed comparatively open submissions for years, leaning on automated scans to vet new apps. That leniency resulted in an overabundance of low-effort, deceptive, and generally malicious content material.
In July 2024, Google launched a significant policy overhaul to boost app high quality requirements. It launched stricter minimal necessities past eradicating simply unstable or malfunctioning apps. The brand new guidelines focused these with little content material or performance – akin to static apps with no interactivity, easy textual content or PDF viewers, and apps that provided solely a single wallpaper.
Google informed TechCrunch that its up to date insurance policies and enforcement efforts led to the sharp drop in obtainable apps. The corporate defined the way it shifted focus to eradicating low-quality listings to enhance the consumer expertise, even at the price of shrinking the general catalog.
Google additionally enhanced its developer verification course of, requiring obligatory app testing for brand spanking new private developer accounts and including extra human oversight to detect misleading or fraudulent apps. The corporate elevated its use of AI for risk detection, boosted privateness insurance policies, and improved developer instruments. Consequently, Google blocked 2.36 million policy-violating apps and banned over 158,000 developer accounts in 2024.
Whereas some observers may view such a dramatic decline with concern, many within the Android group see it as a optimistic growth. The purge has cleared away a big quantity of low-effort and probably dangerous apps, making it simpler for customers to find high-quality choices and for respected builders to realize visibility in a much less crowded market.
Regardless of hypothesis, the European Union’s “dealer standing” rule didn’t considerably influence the decline in app numbers. This regulation, which mandates that builders show their names and addresses in app listings inside the EU, got here into impact in February 2024. Nonetheless, since Apple confronted the identical requirement with out a drop in app numbers, it means that Google’s app discount was pushed extra by its quality-focused insurance policies than by regulatory adjustments.
Apparently, Appfigures identified that the decline in Google Play’s app rely started earlier than the official purge began final summer season. This early drop means that different elements may need performed a job, though the precise causes stay unclear.
Developer exercise on Google Play stays robust regardless of the general app discount. Within the first few months of 2025, builders launched greater than 10,400 new apps, marking a 7.1-percent enhance in comparison with final yr. This uptick demonstrates continued curiosity within the platform, suggesting that the extra stringent app approval course of has not dampened growth exercise.
