Why is Google silent on 1 billion app downloads?

In some ways, Google can be quite bad at publicizing what’s going on with the Android OS. For example, it seems that the Market has finally crossed the 1 billion downloads mark yesterday – but Google has remained mostly silent.

What’s the story?

A website called AndroLib has set itself up as an alternative to the Android Market. AndroLib offers links to apps on the Market that are available for download – it showcases all of the apps available. But unlike the Market, AndroLib makes download stats publicly available. And if you pop along to the stats page, you’ll see a ticker that counts the number of apps that have been downloaded. When I visited, just a moment ago, it was displaying this:

AndroLib claims there are over 93,000 apps available for Android users right now. Getting 1 billion downloads is a big deal. How come Google hasn’t mentioned anything?

What we think?

Well, maybe it’s not such a big deal anymore. And it may not even be true.

Google is the third company to pass this particular finish line. Apple racked up 1 billion download during April last year. And independent app store GetJar reached the billion mark over a month ago. Google may not be thrilled to publicize the fact that it is coming in third place, only beating Nokia’s Ovi to the punch.

And, of course, there’s the fact that this may not be an accurate report. AndroLib is not an entirely spot-on representation of downloads over the Market. Engadget reports Google has broken silence to say that AndroLib is wrong about the overall number of apps – it’s not 93,000, says Google, it’s 70,000. So Android may not have reached the 1 billion mark yet. Or perhaps it has, and Google just wants to keep it quiet and hope this particular metric stops being so important to people.