Android Market hits 10 billion downloads

Google

Graph showing Android Market growth in downloads

By Athima Chansanchai

It took about two years, but the Android Market has reached a new threshold with its 10 billionth download, Photobucket Mobile. And to celebrate that — and possibly crank up those numbers even more — Google is selling selected apps every day for another week for 10 cents each.

Most of those apps usually cost 99 cents to $7, so it's a good deal to snap them up while they're still only a dime. 

In contrast, it took Apple's App Store about 2.5 years to hit 10 billion downloads almost a year ago, in January (with a giveaway of $10,000 to the woman who downloaded the milestone app, only after she hung up on them thinking it was a telemarketer). In July, the App Store crossed over into 15 billion downloads.

Google released an infographic, which we also share with you below. It gives us more details about this marker, such as how quickly the momentum has built up behind Android. In the five months between July and December, about four billion downloads poured into Android devices. Before that, it took more than a year to for that same volume to occur. 

We can't say we're that surprised they're at 10 billion. After all, there aremore Android devices than iOS devices, which accounts for how it overtook Apple's mobile operating system download market share earlier this fall.

The infographic also tells us that the most popular download time is post-dinner, pre-bed, at 9 p.m. The U.S. also isn't the country with the appiest tendenices. In fact, it comes in fourth behind South Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan. The biggest category for downloads is not a shocker, either: games, with more than a quarter of those billions.

But Android has been beset by consistent reports of malware invasions, most recently implicated prominently in a McAfee report. Android's vulnerability is also key in this story, which reveals Android malware has jumped 472 percent since July. But, that's not to say Google doesn't take precautions. Through applications permissions, sandboxing and making the device default to Android Market downloads, and other pre-emptive and responsive mechanisms, Google tries to counter those threats. Though it is open source, consumers should be wary of opening up their Android devices to third-party downloads not funneled through the official Android Market.