Blog

Thanks to the upcoming Christmas and New Year's holidays, we're on a slightly accelerated schedule with the latest WIP App Store Report, a monthly report based on our App Store Catalog, the most comprehensive collection of information on mobile app stores available -- so think of this as an early present!

The number of stores in the catalog grew by only one during the month, edging up to 110 now. But it's the growth during the year that we want to focus on. As you can see from the chart above, one year ago, the WIP App Store Catalog featured just 32 stores; since then, it has more than tripled, giving developers an unprecedented array of distribution outlets. The overall growth has been driven in absolute numbers by independent app stores -- a reflection of the fact that today’s smartphones allow for open distibution channels, and that anybody with a decent level of technical skill could conceivably start their own app store. But it’s worth highlighting the growth in a few...