Apple’s Apps Flying Off the Virtual Shelves: 6.6 Million Downloads Per Day
by Peter Kafka
Posted on September 28, 2009 at 6:00 AM PT
Another milestone Apple is happy to brag about: The company says it has served up two billion apps for the iPhone and iPod touch from its iTunes store.
How do we put that in context? A couple different ways.
For starters, let’s note that the velocity of apps Apple (AAPL) is delivering is increasing: It took Steve Jobs and company a little more than a year to serve up the first 1.5 billion apps, which averages 4.1 million downloads per day. But Apple moved the next 500 million apps within 76 days. That’s a 6.6 million-per-day average.
Next, let’s acknowledge that while the money Apple makes from the app store is secondary to its core hardware business, it’s still a sizable amount.
Even if you assume that the majority of apps are downloaded for free, the remainder may still be generating sales of $200 million a month, mobile ad network AdMob guesstimates. Apple keeps 30 percent of that, which works out to be $720 million a year. Not bad for a side business.
Comments
As I said in a related post (http://bit.ly/B6f8G), I think this is happening because Apple has set the standard in terms of making the iPhone essentially a full computer with the easiest and most reliable application discovery and install process on Earth. These numbers will continue to accelerate.
Posted by Alex Hawkinson at September 28th, 2009 at 7:37 amI wrote a simply bit.ly app, Peter, called HackBitly. It is very niche and you wouldn’t think any one would buy it, but I’m selling one or two per day! That’s not a lot of money, like $0.70 a day, but that this tiny app would sell at all amazes me. If I had written for any other platform, mobile or not, I would not expect any downloads, even if I gave it away for free. The app store is simply amazing.
Posted by Bjorn Tipling at September 28th, 2009 at 7:46 amI’m really interested in the way that garage developers like Bjorn get traction on the app store without money to promote the app or an established network to help distribute it.
Posted by Peter Kafka at September 28th, 2009 at 8:03 amPeter – you make an interesting point, but the reality is the successes in the app store ARE promoting their applications using a wide variety of marketing techniques. Apps are products.. and products need marketing. I’ve been teaching app store marketing with Edison Labs and we found that there is a desire and a need for professional marketing expertise to help these folks out. To that end I’ve started a practice doing PR and marketing for developers and we are seeing great successes with very little investment! I can be reached at aaron at watkinsmobile dot com.
Posted by Aaron Watkins at September 28th, 2009 at 8:34 amTo elaborate more on velocity:
It took Apple
…97 days from 0.5 to 1 billion
…82 days from 1 to 1.5 billion
…76 days from 1.5 to 2 billion
There’s some increase, but not a lot. Especially if you look at the ratio software per device, given that at the same time Apple went from 30 to 50 million compatible devices.
AdMob’s revenue estimate of $200 million per month was denied by several developers, which is no surprise as AdMob’s business is in free ad-supported apps, not paid apps, and even then it’s 2nd hand information they collect because they don’t offer downloads on the AppStore themselves but rather have to relie on their network of partner apps.
Posted by Tom Ross at September 30th, 2009 at 5:17 pm