The app store formerly known as the Android Market has quietly passed a major milestone. Google has confirmed that Google Play saw its 15 billionth app download several weeks ago. The app store passed 11 billion downloads in December.
By comparison, Apple’s App Store passed 15 billion downloads last July and 25 million downloads in March. It appears the App Store sees about 1.25 billion app downloads per month, while Google Play gets about 1 billion app downloads per month. But the biggest disparity between the two is the difference in payouts to the mobile development industry: Apple has paid $4 billion to developers, while Google has only paid about $320 million.
