Bubbling under: Samsung’s Bada app store hits 100M downloads

It’s easy to forget that there are other app stores—indeed, other operating systems—which are making headway outside of iOS and Android. To remind us, Samsung just announced that its mobile and TV app store for the Bada operating system, Samsung Apps, has hit 100 million downloads.

If you look at Samsung Apps’ numbers, they are impressive — despite being nowhere near as stellar as Apple’s or Google’s. Opened in June 2010 with the release of the Samsung Wave smartphone, it took Samsung Apps three months to hit 10 million downloads and ten months to hit 100 million downloads. (Apple’s App Store hit ten million in its first weekend, and in nine months, Apple’s App Store hit its billionth download.)

It may not be completely fair to compare Samsung’s fledgling operating system to the reach of Apple’s iOS or Google’s Android, especially since Bada is essentially middleware, designed to turn feature phones into smartphones in an attempt to bring the smartphone experience to cheaper devices. That’s just there to give you an idea of the scale. However, Samsung Apps is not doing bad, considering it has grown at an accelerated rate in the past ten months. And the company expects to growth to continue this year, with more Bada devices lined up for 2011: in 2010, Samsung shipped around 5 million Bada devices.

Samsung Apps has about 13,000 apps available, which work on Bada phones like the Samsung Wave, and some web-enabled TVs. Of the 100 million downloads, France, Germany and Spain were the top three countries, which accounted for 40% of the downloads. The top downloaded apps were Magic Apps’ Magic Torch, EA’s Need for Speed and Gameloft’s Asphalt 5.

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