Google Play installs reached 65 billion last year

How big is the Android app ecosystem? Google gave an update on this today at its Google I/O Developer conference, when VP of Engineering Dave Burke announced 65 billion installs from Google Play over the past year.

“There were 65 billion installs in the last year alone. And I’m just in constantly in awe of all the amazing apps and services that’s fueling this,” he said.

For comparison’s sake, Andreessen Horowitz partner and mobile analyst Benedict Evans said in June 2015 that Google Play app downloads had reached 50 billion over the past 12 months, compared to iOS’s then 25 billion.

Apple announced 100 billion app downloads to date at its WWDC keynote in June 2015.

And app analytics platform provider App Annie said that there were 111.2 billion total downloads in 2015 across iOS, Google Play and third-party Android stores. It also more recently reported a download gap between Google Play and the iTunes App Store of 100 percent in favor of Google Play.

In addition to announcing this 65 billion figure, Google unveiled a few other numbers related to Android’s traction.

The company noted that over 600 Android smartphone models launched in the last year alone, Android Wear now had 12 partners making smartwatches, Android TV was now on millions of units, and there are over 100 car model and stereos running Android Auto.

Last September, Google said there were 1.4 billion Android users worldwide, and IDC estimates that Google’s Android operating system will close out the year with 82.6 percent market share.