Though it has been growing constantly this year, the growth in the Windows Phone Store had some trouble getting significant growth jumpstarted as Microsoft continued its efforts in getting developers excited for the WP8 platform.
These efforts seem to be paying off; Windows Phone head Todd Brix announced on the company’s official blog that there are now more than 160,000 apps in the Windows Phone Store, up from the 145,000 apps the company posted on May 10th — an average growth of about 320 apps per day in the last month and a half — and 30,000 more apps than the platform had in February.
We’re also investing in new programs to drive traffic and to encourage users to check out the Store’s 160,000+ apps and games. This includes the recent launch of a weekly deal program, Red Stripe Deals, which offers users the opportunity to purchase one app, one indie game, and one Xbox game each week, at a savings of at least 50%. So far there has been an average 4x lift in net revenue for developers featured in each week of promotion, with revenue lift for up to 4 weeks following the promotion as a result of increased rankings and exposure in high-traffic areas of the Store.
The Windows Phone Store is also seeing more 200 million transactions per month, with daily revenues increasing 2.5 times since the launch of the new OS last October, attributed to the rollout of carrier billing — the Windows Phone Store now supports carrier billing on 30 carriers in 20 markets, ahead of Google Play.
It’s definitely great to see the world’s third platform growing and prospering, and with Microsoft lowering the annual developer fee from $99 to $19 for the next 60 days, we could see another increase, which would be a very good thing. After all, more competition means more great options and services for customers.