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Apple’s Shocking App Store Numbers

November 4th, 2009
Apple announced today that developers have created over 100,000 applications for its iPhone and iPod Touch App Store, and that users have downloaded well over two billion apps in the 16 months since the store’s launch.

Stop for a second to think about those numbers. The store’s only been around 482 days. It launched with only 500 apps, so that averages out to more than 200 new apps a day, and a staggering 4,149,377 downloads a day.

Apple says it has sold 30 million iPhones and 20 million iPod touches. If we assume that every single one of those devices was sold to a different person, and every single device was used to download apps, that means Apple’s averaging 40 applications per user. And that’s the theoretical low end: Since some people own multiple devices or don’t download at all, the real average is likely several times higher.

It’s a considerable achievement, and one that shows how far behind competitors like Google and Research In Motion are with their Android Market and BlackBerry App World, respectively. According to AndroLib.com, the Android Market has upwards of 15,000 applications. App World has just 3,000.

Post by David Ewalt of forbes.com