According to a report from appFigures, the number of apps released on the Google Play Store released in 2014 surpassed the number of apps released on the iOS App Store. This is the first time that the Google Play Store has surpassed Apple’s App Store in terms of the number of apps being released in a year. 

Additionally, the report suggests that the growth of Google Play developer community also exceeded App Store’s growth for the third year in a row. While the Google Play Store has nearly 388,000 developers, Apple’s App Store has more than a million apps from only 282,000 developers.

appFigures’s report pegs the total number of applications on the Google Play Store at 1.43 million, with the iOS App Store coming in a close second at 1.21 million. Amazon’s App Store came in a distant third with 293,000 apps, but its growth rate of 90% in 2014 was higher than the iOS App Store.

The report also indicates that the fastest growing categories in Google Play Store among new developers were Games, Photography, Music, Business and Entertainment. The categories grew not only in number of apps, but also in terms of developers.

Overall, the report notes that app development on all the three app stores grew tremendously with the Google Play Store more than doubling the number of apps distributed through it in 2014