Data & Research

GetJar App Meter reveals Android app submissions up 500%

66% of downloads from the store are games

GetJar App Meter reveals Android app submissions up 500%
Considering the headlines GetJar has fostered thanks to its support of Android, it might have seemed safe to assume that Google's OS was the most important platform on the marketplace.

In reality, both Symbian and Java remain the dominate forces in terms of the apps carried by the portal, though figures obtained from the firm's first App Meter report suggests that's a situation that's set to change.

Android acceleration

The biggest stat drawn from the firm's data sweep – which appears to combine in-house numbers with a survey of 2,500 users – is that Android app submissions are up 500 percent year-on-year.

At the moment, Android makes up 18.2 percent of apps on GetJar on a global basis, but the firm claims that picture changes in both North America and Europe, where Google's OS holds a 34.9 percent and 31.8 percent share respectively.

As such, the company claims it's clear that, in the future, Android will become the marketplace's primary focus.

Next steps

That's a position backed up by the fact that 41.2 percent of those surveyed claimed their next phone will be an Android handset.

That puts it comfortably ahead on iPhone on 15.6 percent, Symbian on 11.4 percent, BlackBerry on 8.5 percent and what's labelled as Windows Mobile (though presumably actually Windows Phone 7) on 8.2 percent.



However, given the survey sapped up existing GetJar users, it's hardly surprising that Android, rather than iPhone, came out on top.

Games galore

In terms of the wider market, games appear to be where the money is.

GetJar claims that, of the apps people download – 28 percent of which who do so daily – 65.7 percent are games.

Just how they discover them, however, is more interesting. Much focus on the digital download age is place on the importance of social media as a discovery tool, but GetJar's numbers suggest just 5.8 percent of users discover apps via such sites.

Instead, the much broader – and almost indefinable – category of 'online' dominates, with 53 percent of users surveyed claiming that's where they make their purchasing decisions.

21.6 percent discover apps via the app stores themselves, while 7.3 percent are influenced by mobile advertising.



You can read the report in full on GetJar's blog.

With a fine eye for detail, Keith Andrew is fuelled by strong coffee, Kylie Minogue and the shapely curve of a san serif font.