2 Billion App Downloads

Apple announced today that more than two Billion (2,000,000,000) applications have been downloaded from its app store. That is one heck of a big number. There are now over 85,000 applications available on the iTunes store. Apple has more than 50 Million (50,000,000) iPhone and iPod touch customers worldwide. The iPhone is now available in 77 countries with some recent huge market entries just announced!


Another incredible fact about the number of downloads is the speed at which downloads are increasing. Apple's app store had half a billion, that's 500 Million, downloads in the last quarter alone. It will eventually slow but at this point sales are going ballistic.

What surprised me about the big 2 Billion number is the yawing and lack of incredibleness reported about it! I was thinking last week about Apple's great success recently, and more specifically how great the iPhone has been for them. It got me thinking... "what's next?" I wonder this because there are some other very serious players out there making moves and unless Apple has another big hit in the next year or two, they too could end up a thing of the past. RIM learned a hard lesson about being late with the Blackberry Storm and bringing out a device that doesn't compete well with the iPhone. Will Apple get taken down a peg or two by Google or Microsoft?

It's going to be interesting to watch in the next year or two!