Apple App Store could hit 300K mark by end of 2010

The number of apps in the Apple App Store may triple by next year, the research firm IDC estimates. Growth was predicted for the Droid marketplace as well.

In November, Apple announced that its App Store held over 100,000 apps – a startling leap from the 552 apps available in 2008, when the App Store launched. Today, the analytics firm IDC predicated that the number of the apps available will continue to expand exponentially through the end of 2010.

"[The] growth in mobile devices will ignite an explosion in mobile applications, with the number of iPhone apps tripling to 300,000 and Android apps surging by a factor of five or more," IDC said in a statement. "This same phenomenon will also play out in the netbook market, where new software ecosystems will emerge to optimize the performance and usability of these popular devices."

The numbers sound a little high. But Apple has put a good deal of manpower and marketing muscle behind its App Store, and there's no reason to doubt that the store will continue to grow a pretty good clip.

The prospect of a boom in the Android Market, on the other hand, seems like a dicier bet.

As we noted recently, a new study from Skyhook Wireless shows that a majority of developers are frustrated with the functionality of the Android Market. 82 percent of the developers surveyed felt the design of the marketplace makes it difficult for their apps to be noticed, while 57 percent of developers said were not satisfied with their profits on the marketplace.

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