We had reported earlier in the week that almost 10,000 iPhone Apps are available on the App Store. That count is currently 10424 iPhone apps and increasing.
Apple has started advertising this milestone in the print media. Apple in the ad also reported that 300 million iPhone apps have been downloaded from the App Store since its launch.
Though that sounds like an impressive number of downloads, it also highlights that the growth is not accelerating.
Steve Jobs had reported during Apple’s Special Event in September that more than 100 million iPhone Apps had been downloaded.
Apple had reported at the last earnings announcement that 200 million iPhone apps were downloaded.
Based on this information, Silicon Alley Insider estimates that it took 61 days to cross the 100 million iPhone app downloads, 41 more days to cross the 200 millionth and another 41 days to cross the 300 millionth iPhone app downloads.
So though the 300 million downloads is an amazing milestone for a mobile application platform it is a bit disappointing to see that growth in not accelerating if you consider that Apple had blown past its target of 10 million iPhones with 6.9 million iPhones sold in the fourth quarter of 2008 (and this does not include the number of iPod Touch that have been sold).
Silicon Alley Insider provides an explanation for the lack of acceleration:
"We assume that downloads are front-loaded. People probably download a
bunch of apps the first day they get their device, a few more over the
next week, and then more slowly going forward."
But if you compare this milestone with Apple’s other businesses then it is quite impressive. It took Apple almost 2 years to sell 300 million songs. Apple sold the 200 million video in October, 2008, almost 3 years since videos have been available on the iTunes store (source: Wikipedia).
Interestingly, Steve Jobs had called Kevin Britten of Hays, Kansas, who had bought the 100 millionth song, but there were no such calls when the 100 million mark was crossed on the App Store.
Piper Jaffray’s Gene Munster believes that iPhone Apps could be a $1 billion market next year, with Apple
receiving $300 million (Apple keeps 30% of the cost of the iPhone app) but its a fraction of Apple’s revenue, which Munster expects to reach $38.9 billion next year.
Congratulations to Apple and more importantly to iPhone developers for crossing this milestone.
You can checkout the photo of the ad placed by Apple in The Wall Street Journal and the New York Times:
To see some of our favorite iPhone apps checkout the iPhone Apps review section. Tell us your favorite iPhone apps in the comments below.
[via Silicon Alley Insider, image courtesy Macworld]
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