Downloads in App Store Climbs to 40 Billion

The news is out – iOS App Store has reached 40 billion downloads, with almost 50% of them happening in the year 2012 alone! The month of December has also been favorable with 2 billion downloads. In 2011, there were about 550,000 apps in the App Store with about $4 billion being paid to the developers, but the total nearly doubled in 2012 when 225,000 apps were added.

The runaway hit game Temple Run did exceptionally well and was downloaded more than 75 million times, considering it is a small development studio. More than 300, 000 apps were developed only for the iPad. The announcement of Apple’s success comes at a perfect time when the tech world is tuned towards the Consumer Electronics Show (CES). Needless to say, Apple will steal the thunder from every device on display at the show in Las Vegas. Apple has used this strategy before by holding other events where the spotlight is only focused on itself such as the World Wide Developers Conference.

However, any similar announcement from Apple is typically followed by a quarterly earnings call or the launch of a new device. For example, a year back Apple revealed that it had paid $4 billion to developers while announcing its Q1 earnings. Stand-alone announcements are not the company’s usual style.

Around 75,000 apps were added to the App Store between September 12, 2012 and January 7, 2013, which amounts to 641 new apps in the App Store per day and 19,000+ new apps each month.