Sophie Blake
With the removal of over 540,000 apps from Apple’s App Store during the third quarter, the number of available apps decreased by 24.79% Q/Q to a seven-year low of 1,642,759, according to new data from Finbold.
In terms of app count, the App Store is currently the second app marketplace when compared to Google’s Play Store and Amazon Appstore, which have 3,553,050 and 483,328 apps respectively.
While Apple last saw this level in the third quarter of 2015, it regularly removes apps for a variety of reasons such as posing threat to users, providing a poor user experience, and failing to comply with its App Store policies.
Earlier this year, the company sent an ‘’App Improvement Notice” to developers warning them that their apps would be removed if they haven’t been updated for a “significant amount of time’’.
At the time, Sensor Tower predicted that the decision could result in 3,000 apps being removed, however, Pixalate reported in August that Apple removed 439,000 apps in Q2 and 64% of them hadn’t been updated for at least two years.
Also Read: Over 1.5 million mobile apps haven’t been updated in over two years
According to Finbold, Apple’s app removals coincided with the time it saw its sharpest revenue decline during Q3. While it suggests there could be a link between them, Morgan Stanley analyst Erik Woodrin said the main reason behind the drop in Apple’s revenue was gaming revenue which declined 14% Y/Y.
Apple is expected to continue its app removals since it keeps updating its App Store policies. The company, for example, recently added new rules for crypto and NFT payments.
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