The projected sales of all Android apps could beat out earnings from Apple’s App Store for the first time ever this year, according to a forecast by specialised market research group App Annie.

The report suggest that Apple’s App Store will pull in $40bn (£32bn, AU$52bn) by the end of 2017, an increase of $6bn from last year’s figures, while Google Play is looking at raking in $21bn (£17bn, AU$27bn). The combination of this rather strong projected earning from Google Play with other popular Android stores, such as Samsung’s and Amazon’s, is expected to bring that total up to $41bn. 

Impressively, while the Apple App Store is predicted to double the earnings of the Play Store, the amount of the applications actually downloaded is only around a quarter of Google’s. This could indicate a number of things, including the possibility that Android users are more likely to download free apps and are less likely to splurge on in-app purchases, or that there are more free options.

Also worth noting is the continuation of money-making potential that games tend to see over other apps, with less games being downloaded compared with the percentage of revenue they rake in, and this trend is expected to grow over the next five years.

App Annie’s study considers the market’s growth up until 2021, and predicts that Apple will keep its lead over Google regarding their respective stores, but that the margin between overall Apple to Android apps will continue increasing up to $18bn (£14bn, AU$23bn).