In the mobile application race, Research In Motion has upped the ante by doubling the number of programs it is now selling on its BlackBerry handsets.
The handset maker opened its BlackBerry App World to the public back in April with less than 1,000 applications. Today, it says it has about 2,000, reports Bloomberg. In addition, the store has opened for business in Italy, France, Germany and Spain. In the coming months, it will go live in more countries, including Brazil and India.
RIM (NSDQ: RIMM) still trails the number of applications that Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) has, which is constantly growing and stands at somewhere around 50,000, and even Google (NSDQ: GOOG), which has more than 5,000 apps in the Android Market. It easily surpases the number of apps in the latest store to launch — Palm’s App Catalog (which has about 30).
But it’s not just about number of apps, it’s about downloads, too. Jeff McDowell, VP of global alliances, said told Bloomberg, RIM is “very happy” with the volume of downloads from App World, although declined to disclose the exact figure. With the larger catalog available, it doubled the number of entertainment apps, and nearly doubled the number of games. Now that BlackBerry’s store is also available overseas, developers are making applications to fit other cultures, including subjects such as Bollywood films and cricket in India and soccer in Europe.

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