While Apple still has the lead over Google in terms of profits from their respective app stores, a new study suggests that the Play Store by Google is quickly catching up.

According to a report, the revenue generated by the Google Play Store has doubled over the past 12 months. This increase can be attributed to the accelerated growth of freemium apps and mobile gaming. App Annie, a market data and app analytics website, recently put together a report that includes data and statistics of the Play Store from last year to this year.

The report shows an undeniable improvement in performance by Google, who has enjoyed an incredible year of unforgettable app releases, improvements and tweaks to both design and functionality as well as many other enhancements.

The potential revenue that Google could possibly achieve on its mobile OS grows even faster than the current availability of applications. According to the statistics, downloads increased by 1.5 times and app revenues increased by 2.4 while the number of Android apps increased by around one-third of the total. However, the dominance that the Google Play Store is enjoying is still true as far as downloads are concerned.

Google Play downloads beat Apple's App Store by approximately 45 percent. The growth is driven by the increase in gadgets running on Android in regions such as Brazil, Mexico, and Turkey -- developing markets, especially now that Android smartphones continue to become cheaper, more accessible, and more widely available. Many users prefer Android to iOS devices for those reasons.

The App Store still prevails due to its nature of providing more quality revenue. It was revealed late in 2013 that iOS developers earn as much as 5 times more than the developers of Android. Just like in 2013, the App Store has again earned greater revenue than the Play Store but the latter has been on a mission of closing the revenue gap significantly.