Apple's App Store Reaches 50 Billion Downloads, Now on Pace for 20 Billion Apps Per Year

Wednesday May 15, 2013 2:54 pm PDT by Eric Slivka
Apple's App Store today reached 50 billion downloads since its inception in 2008, and along with the milestone comes the end of the company's "50 Billion App Countdown" promotion launched thirteen days ago. The winner of the promotion, who is yet to be announced, will be awarded a $10,000 gift card valid for App Store, Mac App Store, or any other iTunes Store content. Fifty additional winners will receive $500 gift cards.

app_store_50_billion
The milestone is being acknowledged on Apple's website with a graphic showing a "Thanks" message written using award-winning iPad app Paper by FiftyThree.

The App Store took nearly 3 years, 8 months to reach 25 billion downloads, with the next 25 billion downloads requiring only about 14.5 months.

app_store_50_billion_graph
With the last 25 billion downloads coming over a period of 14.5 months, Apple's pace is now at over 20 billion downloads per year or over 50 million per day. As tracked by our sister site AppShopper, Apple has approved a total of nearly 1.2 million apps for the App Store since its launch, with nearly 850,000 of them currently available in the store.

[ 80 comments ]

Top Rated Comments

(View all)

Avatar
gmanist1000
86 months ago
Can't wait to see what the app was. I'm thinking Hangouts has a high chance....
Rating: 9 Votes
Avatar
Shrink
86 months ago
Thank goodness that's over.

The excitement was just incredibly underwhelming.:rolleyes:
Rating: 8 Votes
Avatar
MacDav
86 months ago

so who won?


You did...You're first on MacRumors. :p
Rating: 6 Votes
Avatar
ck2875
86 months ago

Who else was in there at the last minute really gunning for it and downloading apps? I bet their traffic went up in the last 10 minutes!


To be fair, the official rules stated: "Any download counter displayed by Sponsor is for illustrative purposes only. The potential winners will be determined by the order of the entries received." so it's quite possible the winner downloaded their app any time before or after that counter struck 50,000,000,000.
Rating: 5 Votes
Avatar
MacDav
86 months ago

What is someone really gonna do with a $10,000 gift card to the app stores? Buy Angry Birds for 5.000 of their closest friends? :)


Well first I would buy all the Apple Pro software Final Cut Pro, Logic, etc.
After that the choices get a little more boring and difficult. :)
Rating: 4 Votes
Avatar
MacDav
86 months ago

I caought it on 50 billion hahahah :)
[url=http://i1282.photobucket.com/albums/a532/jamesjingyi/50000000000_zps522547ef.png]Image (http://s1282.photobucket.com/user/jamesjingyi/media/50000000000_zps522547ef.png.html)[/URL]


You life is now complete. :p
Rating: 3 Votes
Avatar
needfx
86 months ago
You're welcome
Rating: 3 Votes
Avatar
Paint.It.Black
86 months ago

I read the Android App store just hit 48 Billion

link please...

Edit: never mind, mentioned at IO
Rating: 3 Votes
Avatar
jamesjingyi
86 months ago
I caought it on 50 billion hahahah :)
(http://s1282.photobucket.com/user/jamesjingyi/media/50000000000_zps522547ef.png.html)
Rating: 3 Votes
Avatar
Meandmunch
86 months ago
I read the Android App store just hit 48 Billion. I wonder if Apple will flaunt the next milestone even if Androids numbers will ellipse it by multiples.
Rating: 3 Votes

[ Read All Comments ]