In last year Amazon has become a major player in the Android tablet wars. The Kindle Fire HD is one of the best Android tablets on the market, and Amazon’s software is pretty solid overall.

Sales of the Kindle Fire HD have been strong over the last few months, and Amazon announced today that their Appstore has grown 500 percent.

In a press release today Amazon says that their the number of apps downloaded from the Appstore has increased 500 percent from its numbers last year. Amazon says that apps making using its GameCircle platform have more than doubled, and and the number of developers using in-app purchases has doubled as well.

That sounds like a huge increase, but it’s hard to quantify just how large that jump is because Amazon does not release any data. The improvement could have just been from 20,000 app downloads to 100,000 app downloads, which is fairly small compared to other App Stores.

Regardless of the numbers, Amazon’s growth has been impressive. As one of the few tablets that is truly competing with the iPad for marketshare, the Kindle Fire HD has been one of the most successful new tablets on the market this year and will be a guaranteed hit this holiday season.

• SourceAmazon
• ViaAndroid Central