Microsoft only provides sporadic updates to how the Windows Phone Store is doing, but today, it used the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona to offer a few new numbers. According to Microsoft, there are now over 130,000 apps in the Windows Phone Store, and the average Windows Phone user has now downloaded 55 apps. App downloads, the company says, have increased by 75 percent since the Windows Phone 8 launch late last year, and paid app revenue has increased 91 percent.
The Windows Phone developer ecosystem, too, is growing quickly, according to Microsoft. More than 40,000 new developers registered with the company in the first 90 days since the launch of Windows Phone 8, and there are now over 15,000 apps in the store that leverage features only available in Windows Phone 8. SDK downloads, too, are up and have now topped 500,000 since October 30, 2012.
One thing that’s worth noting when looking at the number of new developers is that Microsoft reduced the price of registering as a developer from $99 per year to $8 for the first year during the eight days after the Windows Phone 8 launch, so the numbers may be a good bit higher because of this.
New Dev Center App
Microsoft also launched a mobile version of its Dev Center dashboard today. The Dev Center app provides developers with easy access to all the key metrics about their app, including download data, crash trends and reviews. The app, of course, also features a live tile and lets developers share a link to their apps with others without having to go into the store first.
To make Windows Phone even more attractive to developers, the company also teamed up with services like Box, mobile backend provider Buddy and Photon Cloud, a service for game developers, to offer Windows Phone developers a number of special offers like free API calls and free service for a limited time.