According to Microsoft, there are currently over 11,500 apps (counting both free and paid apps) in the Windows Phone store. They also added that this number was without “padding”, which was part of a criticism of other app stores that inflate their numbers by counting apps like wallpaper apps and multiple language versions of the same app.

Windows Phone 7 App Store Growing At Huge Rates

Windows Phone Senior Director Brandon Watson said that their third-party app ecosystem grew to 10,000 apps faster than anyone else’s, out of which about 7,500 are paid apps and about 1,100 generate developer revenue by displaying ads.

The free WP7 tools have already been downloaded about 1.5 million times and there are 36,000 developers on board the platform right now. According to what Watson had to say in a blog, they are adding about 1,200 more developers every week. He also noted that the Windows Phone devices have only been available for about 4 months now, to underline the speed of growth.

Microsoft was however criticized for not disclosing the developer revenue that the WP7 app store is generating.

Developers on a whole seem to be pleased with the WP7 platform, except for some who are complaining that Microsoft is taking too long to go through each development cycle and it should be at a consumer level speed (which is faster) and not at an enterprise level speed (which is slower).

Microsoft overall has been taking steps in the right directions with the WP7 and they seem to have big plans coming up for their mobile platform. And that would explain the comparative calmness on that front. There’s a lot of focus on Windows 8 right now and it seems to be working as a good cover for whatever development is coming up for the next WP7 update.

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