App stores have a huge variety of apps, but for Android users, the selection on the Google Play Store has shrunk dramatically in the past year. Since the beginning of 2024, the total number of apps available worldwide has fallen from around 3.4 million to just 1.8 million, according to research from Appfigures.
That’s a massive 47% drop, meaning almost half of the apps that once existed have now disappeared. Interestingly, this isn’t a universal trend. Apple’s iOS App Store, by contrast, saw a slight increase in its app count over the same period, remaining stable at around 1.64 million apps.
This significant drop was no coincidence, as Google is actively working to improve the quality of its marketplace and weed out low-quality or potentially harmful apps. Google confirmed to the source that several policy updates and stricter enforcement measures are the main factors behind this huge decline.
In detail, its actions: –
Stricter quality standards removed low-value and non-functional apps, going beyond simply fixing problematic apps. -Stronger checks for developers included extensive verification steps and mandatory testing for new accounts. Improved human and AI reviews aggressively blocked millions of policy-violating apps (2.36 million in 2024) and banned numerous developer accounts (over 158,000).
While Google points to cleanup efforts, there may be other factors at play. An EU rule requiring developers to share their addresses went into effect earlier this year, which could have led to some removals, though Apple implemented the same rule without a similar reduction.
Appfigures also noted that the decline began before Google even announced its big policy changes last summer, so the full picture is still unclear. Still, the number of brand-new apps released on Google Play grew by about 7% year-over-year since April 2025, showing that developers are still actively creating apps for Android.
For Android users, this mass purge could actually be good news, as a smaller, more curated Play Store could make it easier to discover quality apps and give legitimate developers a better chance to stand out.
