Android Market unofficially passes 20,000

We're not usually ones to tout numbers — looking at you, tipb! — but the Android Market has unofficially passed 20,000 apps, according to AndroLib.com, which keeps track of such things. (Google isn't publicly releasing any numbers.) And as you can see from the breakdown above, 62 percent of the apps are free. Not a bad ratio at all.

But what's really stunning to us is the rate of growth, skyrocketing from about 6,000 applications in June 2009 to the 20,003 number you see before you today. And when you consider that Android is still just on a handful of phones, it's even more astonishing. Now consider the explosion of devices that we're expecting in 2010. That kind of growth is a testament as much to the developers as it is those downloading the apps. Keep it up, folks! [via Techcrunch]

Phil Nickinson