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Jan. 5, 2010

Apple said this morning that its iPhone App Store has surpassed 3 billion downloads from both iPhone as well as iPod touch users.

Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO says "a little over 3 billion mobile applications downloaded in less than 18 months: this is like nothing we've ever seen before. The revolutionary App Store offers iPhone and iPod touch users a great experience unlike anything else available on other mobile devices, and we see no signs of the competition catching up anytime soon."

Overall, the pace of downloads has grown exponentially. Apple announced on April 23, 2009, that its app store surpassed 1 billion downloads, and it reached 2 billion downloads on Sept. 28 of that year.

Apple's App Store has more than 100,000 apps for download, far surpassing other competitors' stores.

In December, Google said that there are more than 16,000 apps available for Android phones at the Google App Store, and there are only a few thousand available for Research In Motion's (RIM) BlackBerrys, Microsoft's Windows Mobile devices and Palm's WebOS smartphones.

Though most App Store downloads are associated with the iPhone, the number of app downloads from iPod touch users have been growing recently. Late last month, App Store downloads on the iPod touch exceeded the iPhone's for the first time, eclipsing iPhone downloads by well over 170 percent, according to a study by mobile analysis firm Flurry Analytics.

On December 25, when many users cash in their gift certificate cards, Apple's App Store download volume was thirteen times greater than downloads from all Android phones, according to the Flurry Analytics study.

Most wireless industry analysts now agree that App stores are the current rage in the mobile segment, and that the trend will intensify over the coming weeks and throughout 2010.

There's no more doubt that Apple has a commanding lead in the overall mobile Apps market and many analysts agree that when it comes to Apps, Apple is firing on all cylinders.

It will be interesting to see how other vendors will work in trying to improve their market segment in this highly competitive mobile apps field.

One contender to look at carefully is Google with its Android operating system.

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Source: Apple.