It’s All About The Numbers:
Pundits refer to the environment surrounding the Apple iTunes App Store as a gold rush. Another word often used is ‘exponential’ growth. According to Apptism, a web site that catalogues the apps listed within the Apple iTunes App Store, there are now 190,000 apps available. At this rate the total ought to exceed 200,000 by this summer.
At the beginning of the year, Apple announced that it had seen 3 billion apps downloads via the Apple Store. Here is a quick timeline comparing the App Store to the initial iTunes launch.
iTunes Music
April 28, 2003 – Apple launched the iTunes Music Store in the U.S.
May 5 – 1 million downloads
September – 2 million
May – 5 million
June – 10 million
December – 25 million
- Apple launches Canadian iTunes Store
July, 2005 – 500 million
February, 2006 – 1 billion
January, 2007 – 2 billion
June, 2008 – 5 billion
February 2010 – 10 billion
iTunes App Store
July 10, 2008 – Store launch
September – 100 million applications
October – 200 million apps
December – 300 million
January, 2009 – 500 million
March – 800 million
April – 1 billion
January, 2010 – 3 billion
The iTunes Music store did not hit 1 billion downloads not until its second year, while it took little more than 9 months for the App Store to reach that number.
Any guess on what the number will be by January 2011?
Gartner Research believes worldwide mobile-app downloads will surpass 21.6 billion by 2013, with free offerings accounting for 87 percent of the total.
Testimonials
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