App Store officially surpasses 100,000 iPhone applications

A week after App Store tracking service App Shopper reported [1] Apple's virtual storefront had topped the 100,000 iPhone and iPod touch application benchmark, Apple officially confirmed the latest milestone. According to Apple, consumers in 77 countries have now downloaded well over two billion applications in 20 categories including games, business, news, sports, health, reference and travel. With more than 100,000 available apps, Apple also touted its growing arsenal of search and discovery tools, including Genius for Apps, App Store Essentials selections, subcategory listings and more relevant customer reviews.

Of the more than 2 billion-plus applications downloaded since the App Store opened in mid-2008, about 30 percent--approximately 610 million--fall into the premium app category, translating to total developer revenues of $900 million, according to new data issued by iPhone analytics firm Pinch Media. While paid apps constitute about 30 percent of all downloads, Pinch Media notes they make up about 77 percent of the App Store's total available applications--the firm's research indicates that premium apps average 9,300 downloads, while free apps average 71,000 downloads.

Although Pinch Media's findings indicate that premium App Store downloads average $12,100 in revenue ($8,500 net to the developer), the firm is quick to point out that the arithmetic can be misleading because the most popular applications generate a very disproportionate percentage of sales. Pinch notes that a small segment of developers earn substantially more than $8.500 per app, and most do far worse. Pinch data also indicates that the average 99-cent iPhone app is not downloaded significantly more often than the average $4.99 app--in fact, its research suggest that the relatively strong sales performance of apps priced at $4.99 is an indicator of their quality.

For more on the App Store milestone:
- read this release [2]

Related articles:
Apple finally responds to App Store [3] controversies
Time for the App Store [4] to focus on quality, not quantity