Responding to a claim made by The Independent that Google Play was on its way to hitting 15 billion app downloads, Google has revealed it passed said milestone "a few weeks ago."

The statement was made in response to an inquiry by TechCrunch, with the store having amassed an additional 4 billion downloads since Google pegged its tally at 11 billion back in January.

The numbers game

As such – and taking Google's "a few" to mean roughly three weeks ago – that means Google Play is currently notching up around 308 million downloads a week.

Apple's App Store topped 15 billion app downloads back in July 2011, three years after launch.

With Google Play having hit the market as Android Market in October 2008, that means it's taken the store an additional six months to reach the same tally as its main competitor.

Split those figures down to a monthly basis, and that means Apple's marketplace has delivered more than 416 million downloads a month since launch, with Google Play coming in behind on a more modest 357 million downloads a month.

[source: TechCrunch]