By Stephen Schenck | November 30, 2012 12:42 PM
The last time we looked at some app store statistics from App Annie, the company had some info to share about Google Play’s growth, showing a 37% improvement in sales from January through August. That trend has continued, and the the latest figures reveal Google’s Play Store revenue making strides towards catching-up with Apple’s, but it looks like it could still be some time before they’re even close to being neck-and-neck
For Apple, the problem is relatively stagnant growth. In the past month, Apple actually saw App Store revenues decline 0.7%. Over the course of the past year, there has been around 12% growth, but that’s nothing like what Google’s seeing.
Google’s Play Store earning are reportedly up a whopping 17.9% just over the course of the past month. That follows month after month of steady growth; Google’s currently pulling-in 311% of the revenue it had just one year ago.
Right now, Apple still has four times the app store income of Google, but if Google’s sales growth manages to continue along these lines, we could finally see it overtake Apple in another few years.
There’s a whole lot of data in this App Annie report; a further breakdown of where these sales are coming from reveals some interesting trends. Sometime around September, Japan started accounting for more Google Play sales than Google sees from US customers. With iOS, on the other hand, Japan only pulls in half the sales of the US. China is very big for iOS, so news that the iPhone 5 is finally coming to the nation may end up giving Apple a well-appreciated app sales boost.
