How Apple's App Store got to 1.5 billion downloads
Apple (AAPL) announced Tuesday that its customers have downloaded more than 1.5 billion applications in the year since its iPhone App Store — "the largest applications store in the world" — opened for business.
There was no countdown odometer this time — as there was for the 1 billion mark last April — and no prizes for the user who downloaded the last app.
Just a press releasefrom Apple PR and a self-congratulatory quote from Cupertino's prodigal CEO:
"The App Store is like nothing the industry has ever seen before in both scale and quality," said Steve Jobs, who couldn't resist adding a small dig at the competition. "With 1.5 billion apps downloaded, it is going to be very hard for others to catch up."
One of the factors feeding the App Store's growth — and in turn being fed by it — is the size of the installed base: 40 million iPhones and iPod touches according to Tuesday's release, a number likely to grow when Apple announces its fiscal third quarter earnings next week.
The other is the variety and sheer quantity of applications to choose from — 65,000 according to Apple's press release, 58,000 of them in the U.S. App Store, according to 148Apps.biz's independent count, and another 7,000 in the App Store's 70-plus overseas branches.
Logic would suggest that this breakneck growth can't continue forever. But the rate of downloads took off late last year and, as the slope of the curve below suggests, hasn't slowed since.
[...] But Apple has not exactly been without surprises in the past few months. On the iPhone front, the 3GS broke cover and exceeded expectations. The App Store, which sells applications for iPod Touch and iPhone products, also did well for Apple. In fact, it is during the period when Apple experienced Jobs’ absence that the App Store recorded an all-time best of 500 million downloads in three months. [...]
not every app that's downloaded is kept on the device. ive downloaded plenty of free apps that i havent kept just because i didnt think they worked well, or i didnt see a need to keep it. this is probably where those numbers seem off
LMAO, I guess I am one of those people who love to download things. I have over 85 apps (paid and free), and I known people to have over 100. We just can not live without our apps.
So tell me where I've gone wrong… 1.5 billion apps / 40 million devices = 37.5 apps per device. I've got 30 downloaded apps on mine, and that's less than average?
[...] It has pushed over 1.5 BILLION applications to users. [...]