Apple's iMessage App Store has already grown to over 1,650 apps available to download, a feat it managed barely 10 days after the official release of iOS 10.
1,251 out of the 1,650 apps are sticker packs, quirky add-ons to the messaging service. Sticker packs let users embed and decorate their messages with stickers, in a myriad of different styles, animations, colors and even famous characters. Stickers in mobile messaging clients are not novel. Facebook's separate messaging app Messenger and Viber also offer their own sticker packs, only not as many as iMessage does.
Meanwhile, 402 out of the 1,650 are non-sticker apps, and according to SensorTower, the data and insight firm that delivered the report, games lead the non-sticker app ranking at 91 apps in total, more than twice as large as entertainment apps, next to games in the ranking with 39 apps in total.
Following entertainment apps are utilities apps with 31, productivity apps with 26 and social networking apps with 25. The lower tier apps are related to books, music and medical apps, with 4, 3 and 1, respectively.
944 of the sticker apps are paid and the remaining 307 are free to download. 86 percent of the premium sticker packs are set at $0.99, 12 percent at $1.99, and a meager 1 percent at $2.99.
In comparison, the original iPhone app store launched in 2008 only had 500 apps available in the same time span. The iMessage App store isn't even a standalone app store in such a way that it cannot offer a slew of apps that are remotely far in functionality and usage. These apps will always serve the same purpose, and that is to complement the messaging experience users get from the app. Yet, the number of apps represents what's possible to create for developers, if they want to to build apps for iMessage that the audience will respond to.
The SensorTower report is limited to data concerning what kind of apps developers are pushing out for Apple's messaging client. Actual number of downloads by users will have to take time, as more people use iMessage and download apps from its own App store.
Early this year at the Worldwide Developer Conference, Apple pitched iMessage as an effort to offer an overhauled experience that goes beyond chatting, stressing that iMessage is a hub for all kinds of communication, be it sending messages to friends, trying to get a Lyft, booking flights and even letting friends decide what you should wear for a particular occasion. Similar in function is an app called WeChat, a pioneer in reinventing what messaging apps are capable of doing.
It's too early to conclude anything from the SensorTower report. But if Apple plays its cards right, iMessage could be its next big platform. Exactly how that's going to occur is not for Apple to directly machinate, however. If more developers build apps for the messaging client that effectively reduce people's need to hither toward other apps for functionalities and features that could easily be embedded in the messaging app itself, then Apple has a winner. But that could only happen if more people use iMessage as their primary go-to app for communication.
As of this time, the only safe conclusion from the SensorTower report is that iMessage has a ridiculous amount of sticker apps.
