App Acceleration: 4.5 Billion Android Apps Downloaded
The numbers keep rolling in, showing Android smartphone sales accelerating, but a new statistic released from Google shows just how popular the handsets are. Google mobile advertising sales director Ian Carrington said 4.5 billion Android apps have been downloaded so far.
Yes, you read that right: 4.5 billion. And it gets crazier.
Android app downloads have accelerated so much that it took only two months to add the most recent billion to the total.
"A year ago that was 1 billion, and that first billion took two years to happen," Carrington told the British newspaper the Guardian. "The last billion took 60 days."
Those apps are changing the way people do things. Carrington said 24 percent of British smartphone owners are using their phones to compare prices while they are shopping in a store. And smartphones are creating a new habit of "dual-screening." In other words, they are using their phones while also watching TV.
In the United Kingdom, 53 percent of smartphone owners are dual-screening, which can mean anything from playing a game to checking email. While some of this is happening during the commercials, Carrington said that many people are using their phones to look up information about the products they see advertised on TV ― which presents advertisers with the chance to seek new ways to take advantage of their interest.
