The latest report from Distimo is focusing on Windows Phone, partly as a celebration of its one-year birthday. Among their findings were figures for daily app downloads in the U.S., which includes 20,000 paid downloads each day, and 101,000 free apps each day. Distimo also agrees with other recent metrics that puts the total number of Windows Phone apps at over 40,000. While that might sound like a lot, Windows Phone is still behind BlackBerry App World, the Android Market, and way behind the iPhone App Store. In fact, iOS sees about 16 times paid content downloads, and 43 times the free content. Additionally, Distimo estimates that since about 80% of paid Windows Phone apps have free trials, only about 4,000 downloads generate any real revenue.
For all intents and purposes, Windows Phone is still a work in progress, but its future is bright; Distimo’s report shows that developer interest has been steadily growing, businesses are showing more interest in Windows Phone than BlackBerry, some even see the platform beating out Android around 2013. Nokia’s partnership with Microsoft is still young, and not bearing much fruit just yet, but over time it’s easy to see the manufacturing giant propping up Windows Phone as a serious contender.
App downloads and device adoption go hand-in-hand; as one improves, so will the other, but Windows Phone still has a ways to go. You can check out Distimo’s full report on Windows Phone and all the other major smartphone and tablet platforms over here.