Countdown to one Billion

It took Apple two years after releasing the first iPod to sell one billion songs. Apple could do just that with its App Store within half the time. With 12 million iPhones and millions more iPod Touches now in the hands of people around the world, the App Store is seeing some great success. iPhone owners, during the first two months of the App Store’s release, had downloaded two times as many apps as songs.

Not too long ago, at Apple’s Let’s Rock press conference, Steve Jobs mentioned that 100 million apps had been downloaded in just two months (do I hear any developers squirming with joy?!). At this same rate, there could be one billion app downloads by August, 2009, a year after the iPhone 3G was released.

The thing is, if growth continues the way it has been over these last few months, the 1 billion mark could be reached a lot sooner. More and more companies will develop apps for the common consumer, gamer, and even business person. Already in universities across the United States, the iPhone has become an integral part of their resources and you can definitely expect some interesting apps to arise from that field. Eventually, with all of these great applications at hand, more and more people will find a reason to buy the iPhone and download the thousands of apps it has to offer.

I just want to point out however, that while a billion apps may be downloaded within the year, no more than 20-30% of it will be of paid apps. The iTunes benchmark of 1 billion songs was one that Apple actually earned in their pockets.