The Apple App Stores are still the place to be for app developers looking to make money, according to an end of year report from Distimo. In terms of the total revenue generated by the 200 highest grossing apps this year, the App Stores for iPad and iPhone individually beat the Android Market overall; the iPhone store alone generates about four times the revenue that is generated in the Google Android Market.

All of which is perhaps unsurprising, given that the Android Market – despite only having the second largest collection of apps – has the highest number of free apps, having surpassed the iPhone App Store in June 2011.

2011 has also seen the rise of the freemium business model, with half of the revenue of the 200 top grossing apps in the App Store for iPhone generated by apps using the freemium model. On the Android Market, according to the report, this proportion is even higher at 65 per cent.

Nearly all of the app stores more than doubled their number of available apps in 2011, with Windows Phone 7 Marketplace showing the largest relative growth, at more than 400 per cent year-on-year growth. Combined, the seven major app stores now offer over a million apps.

The games category is the single largest app category in most stores, and generates the most downloads. The three largest stores for games are the Apple App Store for iPhone – with 79,077 games – the Google Android Market  – 46,045 games – and the Apple App Store for iPad – 28,683 games, a ranking that has remained consistent throughout 2011.

The full report is available here.