Apple’s App Store tops 40bn downloads

Apple has announced that its customers have downloaded over 40bn apps from App Store, with approximately half of those coming in 2012 alone, while its active user accounts number 500m.

App Store 460

The iPhone and iPad manufacturer made the announcement earlier today (January 7) and further revealed that downloads from its App Store totalled 2bn just last month (December) as uptake of its iOS devices rose on the back of the launch of the iPhone 5.

Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of internet software and services, says the success of the App Store, which contains over 775,000 apps, has helped generate billions in revenue for third-party app developers.

“Developers have made over seven billion dollars on the App Store, and we continue to invest in providing them with the best ecosystem so they can create the most innovative apps in the world,” he says.

Apple has released a statement showcasing the successes of app developers ranging from small ‘mom and pop’ teams to larger corporates including Electronic Arts, Marvel, and JJ Abrams’ Bad Robot Interactive.

Apple’s iOS developer programme provides third parties with assistance in monetising their wares including in-app purchasing, subscriptions and advertising as well as offering assistance with marketing both within the App Store itself and elsewhere.

Mobile internet analytics firm Flurry last week released statistics indicating that mobile app downloads from both the Apple App Store and Android based outlets increased 65% to 1.76bn between December 25 and 31, compared to 1.07bn between December 4 and 17.

Peter Farago, Flurry’s VP of marketing, says: “Over the holiday week, Flurry estimates that over 50 million iOS and Android devices were activated, and 1.76 billion applications were downloaded.

A further breakdown of the statistics shows that the UK was the third-highest for app downloads between Christmas Day and New Year’s Eve, behind the US and China, generating 132m downloads during the period.

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Ronan Shields

The figure marks a significant landmark for mobile internet usage indicating that digital media consumption on smartphones and tablet devices will be more app-based compared to desktop devices, where online behaviour is predominantly performed through browsers.

For marketers this means that ‘app store optimisation’, i.e. how to achieve decent placement within an app store which has hundreds of thousands of other apps all vying for consumers’ eyeballs, will increasingly become a concern, just as search engine optimisation is on desktop.

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