The Google Play app marketplace has experienced a significant decline in the number of available apps.

According to a recent analysis by app intelligence provider Appfigures, the Android app marketplace has seen a decline from approximately 3.4 million apps worldwide to around 1.8 million from the start of 2024 to the present. This represents a decrease of about 47%, indicating a substantial reduction in the number of apps available to Android users globally.

Notably, this decline is not part of a broader global trend. In contrast, Apple’s iOS App Store has seen a slight increase in the number of available apps, from 1.6 million to approximately 1.64 million during the same period.

The reduction in apps on Google Play could be beneficial for Android device owners, who previously had to navigate through numerous low-quality, scammy, and spammy apps to find the best ones to install. Additionally, the decline could help developers who have struggled to gain visibility in a crowded marketplace.

Historically, Google Play’s less stringent app review requirements have led to an influx of lower-quality apps. While Apple enforces strict app review measures, Google has relied on automated checks and malware scans, resulting in a shorter app review period. However, this approach has allowed many poor-quality apps to be published.

In July 2024, Google announced plans to raise the minimum quality requirements for apps, which may have contributed to the decline in available Play Store app listings.

Google will now ban apps that demonstrate “limited functionality and content,” including static apps without app-specific features, such as text-only or PDF-file apps, as well as apps that provide little content. The company has also banned apps designed to do nothing or have no function, which may have been tests or abandoned developer efforts.

Google confirmed that its new policies, including an expanded set of verification requirements, required app testing for new personal developer accounts, and expanded human reviews, were factors in the decline. The company also pointed to investments in AI for threat detection, stronger privacy policies, improved developer tools, and more.

As a result of these efforts, Google prevented 2.36 million policy-violating apps from being published on its Play Store and banned over 158,000 developer accounts that attempted to publish harmful apps.

Another factor that may have contributed to the decline is the new trader status rule enforced by the EU, which requires developers to share their names and addresses in the app’s listing. However, Apple also implemented a similar requirement and did not see a decline in available apps.

Appfigures notes that it began observing a decline in the number of apps on the Google Play Store even before the official start of the purge last summer, although the firm does not yet have an explanation for this change. Nevertheless, there have been 10,400 releases on Google Play so far this year, representing a 7.1% year-over-year increase as of April.