Google Play has reduced the number of Android apps available on its platform as part of an effort to refine and improve its app marketplace.
- Google Play has reduced the number of Android apps available on its platform as part of an effort to refine...
- According to a new analysis by app intelligence provider Appfigures, the total number of apps hosted on Google Play dropped...
- Stricter policies drive the app removal Google has attributed the decline to the enforcement of stricter policies targeting low-quality and potentially...
- Rather than removing only broken or non-functional apps, Google focused on apps that failed to engage users or add value.
Keep reading for the full breakdown on Android — everything you need to know is covered below.
According to a new analysis by app intelligence provider Appfigures, the total number of apps hosted on Google Play dropped from around 3.4 million at the beginning of 2024 to just about 1.8 million by May. Over the same period, Apple’s App Store saw a slight increase in app count, growing from 1.6 million to approximately 1.64 million apps, indicating that the drop is not part of a broader global trend.
Stricter policies drive the app removal
Google has attributed the decline to the enforcement of stricter policies targeting low-quality and potentially harmful apps. In July 2024, the company announced a new policy shift to eliminate apps demonstrating limited functionality and content.
This included static apps such as text-only or PDF-based apps, single wallpaper apps, and apps that effectively did nothing.
Rather than removing only broken or non-functional apps, Google focused on apps that failed to engage users or add value. The company confirmed that these updated quality requirements were key to reducing available apps, alongside “an expanded set of verification requirements, required app testing for new personal developer accounts, and expanded human reviews to check for apps that try to deceive or defraud users.”
Appfigures also noted that the app count began declining even before the new policy updates officially took effect, although the cause of this early drop remains unclear.
Google targets spam and fraud
The app crackdown is also part of Google’s efforts to combat spam and fraud on the Play Store. In March 2025, a large-scale ad fraud operation led to the removal of over 180 apps with more than 56 million downloads.
Google’s investment in AI-powered threat detection and improved developer tools was major in identifying and blocking harmful apps.
As a result of these efforts, Google said it “prevented 2.36 million policy-violating apps from being published on its Play Store and banned more than 158,000 developer accounts that had attempted to publish harmful apps.”
Despite the drop in total apps, the developer activity remains healthy, with 10,400 new releases recorded on Google Play in early 2025 — a 7.1 percent increase year-over-year as of April.