Windows Phone 7 growing 12 times faster than Windows Mobile did

The latest Distimo report is out, focusing on what’s moving and shaking in the various mobile marketplaces present on today’s smartphones. This month’s instalment gives us an insight into Microsoft’s new Windows Phone 7 Marketplace, a mobile operating system that launched just over a month ago.

In the lead-up to the release of Windows Phone 7, Microsoft spent a lot of time and money trying to attract developers to its new platform and for the most part it looks to have paid off. In just over a month, the Windows Phone 7 Marketplace has grown to double the size of the Windows Marketplace for Mobile in just one month, the latter has been open for just over a year. As of November 22, there were 2,674 applications available for Windows Phone 7 smartphones whereas its older counterpart has only amassed 1,350 applications to date.

Distimo has found that Windows Phone 7 users are significantly more into gaming than Windows Mobile users and that the price of applications on the Windows Phone 7 Marketplace have stayed in line with pricing on other mobile application stores, not surprising considering many developers are now producing the same apps and games across all of the popular mobile operating systems.

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It was found that 57% of the 100 most popular applications are priced below $2, with other stores between 51% and 67%, except for Windows Marketplace for Mobile where only 37% are priced lower than $2.

Windows Mobile 6.x applications are the most expensive of all apps on smartphone platforms, costing $6.27 but Microsoft’s newest OS is the cheapest of all stores with an average price of $1.95.

As Windows Phone 7 handset sales continue to grow, it will be interesting to see how the marketplace evolves as the platform tries to differentiate itself from other, more popular, operating systems. Microsoft markets its devices telling consumers that its handsets allow users to see information at-a-glance and return back to normal life, so we could see a new shift in how application developers are looking to display their apps on the platform.

You can download the full Distimo report here.