Honoring the launch of Windows Phone 7, there’s been a lot of attention paid to Microsoft’s new mobile platform recently. Distimo’s latest mobile application report for November is no different, which takes a hard look at the early stage of Microsoft’s new Windows Marketplace for Mobile and its small mobile application ecosystem.
The report covers the Apple App Store for iPad, the Apple App Store for iPhone, BlackBerry’s App World, Google’s Android Market, Nokia’s Ovi Store, Palm’s App Catalog and Windows Marketplace for Mobile (Windows Mobile 6.x) during October 2010 in the United States. Data on the Windows Phone 7 Marketplace was collected during the timeframe of November 1 – 22 in the United States. In addition to the findings for the other various app stores, the data on Windows Phone 7 is particularly interesting. Here’s the major highlights:
- Games are significantly more popular in Windows Phone 7 Marketplace than they are on Windows Marketplace for Mobile (6.x). This mirrors the way that Microsoft positions Windows Phone 7 as a more consumer-oriented platform.
- The price of applications in Windows Phone 7 Marketplace closely mirrors the prices in other application stores, as opposed to applications in the Windows Marketplace for Mobile (6.x), which are significantly more expensive.
- The prices of the most popular applications in Windows Phone 7 Marketplace are even more in line with the other stores: 57% of the 100 most popular applications are priced below $2.00. For the other stores, this is between 51% and 67%, except for Windows Marketplace for Mobile where only 37% of the 100 most popular applications is priced below $2.00.
- The Windows Phone 7 Marketplace launched on October 21, 2010, and has grown to 2,674 applications as of November 22, 2010. In comparison,Windows Marketplace for Mobile has gathered only 1,350 applications to date since the store launched over a year ago.
- All ten of the most popular paid applications in Windows Phone 7 Marketplace are games, with prices ranging from $2.99 – $6.99.There are only two games among the ten most popular free applications in this store.
- Mirroring the Windows Marketplace for Mobile, a large portion of the ten most popular applications in Windows Phone 7 Marketplace is published by Microsoft (six applications). In the Apple App Store for iPad and BlackBerry App World, four out of the ten most popular applications are published by Apple Inc. and Research In Motion Limited, respectively.
