Today, the Windows Phone 7 Marketplace was tracking 5,099 apps according to statistics from WP7 applist giving it a good start for a relatively new mobile platform.  It’s still low compared to Apple’s 300k, or Android’s expansive market too.  Out of the 5,099 apps about 28% were free and for the rest of 72% apps the average price was of $2.31. On average, 113 apps were updated on a daily basis.  The Windows Phone 7 Marketplace has known a steady increase in the number of apps in the last two weeks, from about 4,200 on December 16 to just over 5,000 by December 28.

Although Microsoft has not yet confirmed these figures, it did state that its app Marketplace had 4,000 apps, and on that day it did sell 1.5 million Windows Phone 7 devices.  According to predictions, such as Seth Weintraub’s note in his article for CNNMoney, Android will pose a big threat to Apple and its flag-carrier iPhone: “Growth targets are just starting to trickle out, but HTC, who make high end Android devices and a few Windows Phone 7 devices expect to triple their 2010 output in 2011.

Official Google statements stated that in October the Android Market had 100,000 apps and up to December the number of apps has doubled. “Compared to Apple’s App Store, the Android Market is still some way off – the App Store is thought to have over 300,000 applications available for the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. The App Store is somewhat older than the Android Market but there are a huge number of Android devices accessing Google’s app marketplace, AndroLib puts the number of Android apps downloaded at 2.5 billion.”

At present, the main competitor, Apple’s iPhone, currently holding 28% share of the market is also experiencing growth, but the Android is gaining ground.