Apple’s (AAPL) App Store Invaded by 400K Zombies!

Apple’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) App Store lists more than 650,000 uploaded apps in its App Store, but a recnet study discovered that as many as two-thirds of them (about 400,000) are considered “zombie” apps, or apps that are unranked in search, virtually invisible to App Store users and thus, virtually un-downloaded. This was discovered by an analysis from Adeven using it Apptrace tool.

“The reality is there are only a couple of thousand apps that really make some kind of downloads,” said Adeven CEO Christian Henschel. “This is based on Apple’s closed system — it’s tough to discover those kinds of apps. You don’t have proper search, so the only way to discover new apps is through the top listing.”

Apple has claimed that it has been working to improve its search capability for its App Store, especially after some developers charged that Apple had adjusted its algorithm to favor more relevant apps and apps with more downloads. Apple had reverted back to the previous search algorithm . Earlier this year, Apple bought mobile-application search engine Chomp for $50 million in the hopes of improving its search optimization in its own App Store, so more of those 400,000 “zombies” can be eliminated.

For now, though, Apple App Store visitors will likely see much fewer options than what are actually available. And this despite Apple recently announcing 30 billion app downloads. Not bad for only usuing one-third of the Store’s cpacity.

Just imagine if the zombies were able to come out of hiding!