Google’s Play Store lost nearly half its apps

The Google Play Store shed 1.8 cardinal apps since the opening of past year, according to an investigation from Appfigures and reported earlier by TechCrunch. That makes up astir 47 percent of the 3.4 cardinal apps it started 2024 with — a diminution that Google spokesperson Dan Jackson says reflects the company’s absorption connected “delivering high-quality apps” and “commitment to continuous improvements for idiosyncratic safety.”

In caller years, Google has ramped up efforts to ace down connected spammy and low-quality apps. In 2023, the institution started carrying retired much thorough app reviews and began requiring developers to trial their apps with astatine slightest 20 radical for 2 weeks. It began purging apps with “limited functionality and content” past year, and announced successful January that it blocked 2.36 cardinal policy-violating apps from being published to the Play Store.

As shown by information from Appfigures, astir 200,000 of the titles removed from the Google Play Store were successful the “games” category, followed by 160,700 successful education, and 115,400 successful business. However, Appfigures shows that app releases are up 7.1 percent globally compared to the aforesaid clip past year.

“Every year, we proceed to put successful much ways to support our assemblage and combat atrocious actors, truthful users tin spot the apps they download from Google Play and developers tin physique thriving businesses,” Jackson said successful a connection to The Verge.

Though the Google Play Store whitethorn person mislaid a important fig of apps since past year, Appfigures’ information shows Apple’s App Store making a tiny leap from 1.6 cardinal to 1.64 cardinal apps.