According to an analysis by Appfigures, previously reported by TechCrunch, 1.8 million apps have been removed from the Google Play Store since the beginning of last year. This is about 47 percent of the 3.4 million apps that the store started 2024 with – a decline that Google spokesperson Dan Jackson says reflects the company’s focus on “building high-quality apps” and “striving for continuous improvement for user safety.”
In recent years, Google has stepped up its fight against spam and low-quality apps. In 2023, the company started conducting more thorough app reviews and began requiring developers to test their apps with at least 20 people for two weeks. Last year, the company started removing apps with “limited functionality and content,” and in January announced that it had blocked 2.36 million apps that violated the policy from being published on the Play Store.
According to Appfigures, almost 200,000 of the apps removed from the Google Play Store were in the “games” category, 160,700 in the “education” category, and 115,400 in the “business” category. However, according to Appfigures, the number of apps released grew by 7.1 percent worldwide compared to the same period last year.
“Every year, we continue to invest in new ways to protect our community and crack down on bad actors so that users can trust the apps they download from Google Play and developers can build thriving businesses,” Jackson told The Verge.
While the Google Play store may have lost a significant number of apps since last year, Appfigures data shows that Apple’s App Store made a small jump from 1.6 million to 1.64 million apps.
