It’s been well documented now that the one of the fastest, if not the fastest, growing market in the world is the app economy. People who are too cheap to buy a retail movie, video game or other service are buying millions of cheap apps on smartphones. Android apps are exponentially growing into a force to be reckoned with in the app economy.

A new infographic from our friends over at StartApp shows just how large the Android app ecosystem has become over the last few years. How large? There are now 450,000 apps on Google Play and that only accounts for Google’s service. There are potentially thousands of more apps listed with third-party vendors like Amazon. The number of apps nicely compliments the 300 million Android phones that have now been activated all over the world and 850,000 more are activated every day.

So what benefits does a developer get for making apps on Android? The initial cost is one since Google only requires a one-time fee of $25 to begin development on the platform. Android being an open platform also allows developers to use third-party tools to develop games and apps that are not available on Apple’s platform.

So you’re now making an app for Android. Do you make it free or a paid app? While the paid app may seem like instant easy money, a free app has way more potential to earn the big bucks. Why? People love free even if it’s actually freemium. Consumers are quite content with spending hundreds of dollars within your free game to buy in-game items.

Developers are also going to want to be on board with Facebook once the App Center launches. It will be a place that Android developers will be able to promote their games and apps directly from Facebook, even on the mobile versions. Considering that four out of five people use Facebook for Android, you have a pretty good chance of being discovered.

While it’s still smart to develop for all the platforms that you can, Android is a safe bet if you can choose only one.

courtesy of StartApp