Apple removed 47,300 apps from the App Store last month

Last quarter, Apple said that it would start cleaning house in the App Store. Now, the purge begins. According to data from Sensor Tower, the number of apps removed from the App Store by Apple last month rose by 238% sequentially to 47,300. That figure is also more than triple the 14,000 apps that Apple removed during an average month in 2016.

Mobile games is the category most affected by Apple's purge with 28% of the removed apps coming from that group. After games, the other categories affected were Entertainment (8.99%), Books (8.96%), Education (7%) and Lifestyle (6%). Nearly half of the removed apps hadn't been updated since May 2015. And 25.6% had not seen an update since November 2013. Bottom line? Many of the apps taken out of the App Store were not what you might call freshly squeezed.

Apple says that it receives 100,000 new and updated apps each week. The tech titan says that there are over 2 million apps on the shelves, and the growth will continue according to Sensor Tower. The latter sees 5 million apps in the App Store by 2020, an estimate it first made public this past August.

The App Store has sure come a long way since July 2009 when it held 50,000 apps on its first anniversary.


source: SensorTower via TechCrunch