Over 300m apps sold on the iPhone App Store

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Saturday, 06 December 2008 11:48

IT Industry - Market

There’s been a lot of S60, Win Mobile, Java, Brew etc development, especially over the last few years. But Apple’s success is much more visible, and hopefully its competitors are learning lots of lessons.

Another very visible thing about Apple’s App Store: we now there are now 10,000 apps available. How many are there for S60, or Windows Mobile? Does anyone know? Why aren’t Nokia or Microsoft shouting out their successes in the number of programs written from the rooftops?

CRN’s article states that Apple has made somewhere between US $50 and $100 million from those programs, which is a very handy chunk of change to have earned over the past 6 months, especially in the current “economic downturn”.

CRN also quotes Silicon Valley Insider Senior Editor Dan Frommer who notes that despite many free apps, “the average price of the top 10 App Store downloads is about US $3.”

Keep prices low and affordable, and you make up in volume sales what you lose in high prices, while keeping many more people happy than limiting your app to a smaller audience.

Now that Apple has reached 10,000 apps, how long will it be before this figure doubles, and then doubles again?

With reports of iPhone developers earning thousands or more a month with popular apps, the iPhone and iPod Touch app bandwagon won’t roll off the rails anytime soon.

And hopefully, much more of the mobile app development mania will rub off on Apple’s competitors.

Not only will that keep Apple on its toes and perhaps loosen some of the restrictions Apple has enforced, but keeps the entire smartphone landscape, both from a hardware and software perspective, that much more competitive.

You’ll get no complaints from me about that!