TL; PhD
- Google cleared nearly 115,000 apps from the Play Store in the first half of 2021.
- The total number of Android applications has fallen for the first time since 2018.
- The stricter rules for Play Store titles and images may have an impact.
Google removed nearly 115,000 apps from the Play Store in the first half of 2021. This is the first time that the total number of Android apps has dropped significantly in three years.
According to statistics, from January to April, more than 58,000 applications were removed from the shelves, and about 65,000 applications disappeared in May alone. Safe betting site, Citing data from Google and analytics companies, including App Annie, AppBrain, and Statista. There are now more than 2.8 million apps in the Play Store, down from 3 million in September 2020. The last significant drop occurred in 2018, when the total fell from a peak of 3.6 million to 2.8 million.
The reason for the surge in deletions in May 2021 is believed to be a comprehensive set of new rules announced by Google at the end of April to block applications with misleading names and images. For example, developers are prohibited from using promotional statements to decorate the title, even exceeding 30 characters.
Controlling the quality of Play Store games has always been a long-standing and seemingly tricky issue. The updated rules still do not directly target developers who produce low-quality clones or fake applications that do not work at all in some cases. The latter can be reported, but the attractiveness of easy money may lead to the emergence of new apps to replace apps deleted by Google.
According to reports, the Play Store had 56.2 billion downloads in the first half of 2021, a year-on-year increase of 6%, while Sensor Tower’s data showed revenue increased by 30% to US$23.4 billion. However, Google still lags far behind Apple in terms of finances, as it is estimated to have earned US$41.5 billion in 1H21 App Store revenue, while there are far fewer applications on the market.