Microsoft announced a set of tools intended to make Windows Phone development easier, including for “first time developers”, against a backdrop of criticism about the platform’s app catalogue.

It came as the company also said it had seen two billion app downloads, with the second billion added in less than six months – “one-fifth of the time it took to generate our last billion transactions”.

The headline update is the Windows Phone App Studio, a free, web-based app creation tool “designed to help anyone quickly bring an idea to life by applying text, web content, imagery, and design concepts to a rich set of customisable templates”.

Late last month, an executive from Nokia said that a lack of apps for Windows Phone was hampering take-up, which is something the computing giant is clearly looking to address.

But while the Windows Phone App Studio may help address the portfolio’s size issues, it will not help with what is perhaps the platform’s bigger shortcoming – the lack of several high-profile (and popular) titles which are available for other platforms.

According to a study earlier this year from Canalys, just 34 per cent of the top apps for iOS and Android are available for Windows Phone or fellow challenger BlackBerry 10, with the analyst firm noting that “the availability of key apps is a factor in motivating consumers’ initial mobile device purchasing decisions, and it will only become more so”.

While the overall number of apps in a store provides bragging rights, this is negated if they are of low quality, or contain numerous similar titles.

Other changes includes an update to the Windows Phone Dev Center portal, which has also been updated with a “click to chat” option, to provide live support – at least during the week from 8AM to 8PM “central time”.

Developer payouts are now available in six additional markets, taking the total to 128. The new territories supported are Costa Rica, Cyprus, Kazakhstan, Lebanon, Malta, and Trinidad and Tobago.

And it said that it “continues to add carrier billing connections”, with it now offering “35 connections in 23 markets”.