• CNET, Wednesday, January 4, 2012 12:01 PM

Google's Android Market now has 400,000 available programs, according to analytics firm Distimo. Among all those apps, two-thirds are free, which is up from 60% in April 2011. That said, “It's important to point out that Distimo is not the official word on available Android apps--Google is,” CNet reminds us. Still, if Distimo's estimate is on target, it would put the Android Market within reach of Apple's App Store, which currently leads the market with over 500,000 available applications, according to CNet.

“Whether or not Google's marketplace will be able to catch up to the App Store, however, remains to be seen, since, as Distimo points out, the Android Market needed two more months to hit 400,000 available apps than the App Store.” Last month, Google announced that its Android Market had reached 10 billion downloads since its launch in 2008. Meanwhile, both Google's store and Apple's App Store reported strong finishes in 2011, with Android- and iOS-based device owners downloading 1.2 billion apps during the last week of the year, alone, according to research firm Flurry Analytics.

CNet also notes that Google and Apple aren't the only companies to hit important app store milestones lately. “Last week, Microsoft blog All About Windows Phone found that the Windows Phone Marketplace has now hit 50,000 available applications.”

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