iPhone App Store reaches 1.5 billion downloads in one year

Apple revolutionised the smartphone market with the introduction of the iPhone, and has now broken another record by reaching 1.5 billion downloads on its App Store within just one year of its release.

The App Store, an online marketplace for applications developed for the company’s iPhone and iPod Touch devices, launched in July last year alongside the release of the iPhone 3G.

The company said the store is now the largest in the world, and has recorded 1.5 downloads – just three months after the store recorded its one billionth sale. The store now has over 65,000 applications in over 77 countries.

“The App Store is like nothing the industry has ever seen before in both scale and quality,” chief executive Steve Jobs said in a statement. “With 1.5 billion apps downloaded, it is going to be very hard for others to catch up.”

The store’s popularity is set to grow, as several developers praised the recent iPhone 3.0 OS for giving apps better features and functionality, including the ability to charge users for certain functions within the app itself, creating new sources of revenue.

Other mobile manufacturers released application markets of their own after the App Store was released. Nokia released its Ovi Store earlier this year, while BlackBerry and LG have also launched application markets of their own.

Google Mobile released an application market for its Android smartphones, while Microsoft has launched its Windows Marketplace for Windows Mobile devices. So far none of these markets have achieved the same success as the App Store.

Third-party developers create the apps, which are then sold on the marketplace for direct download to users’ devices. Apple takes a 30% cut of all revenue, with the software makers pocketing the rest.

An entire industry has now developed around the creation and marketing of these apps, with small software development studios now devoting entire departments, or even whole firms themselves, to developing programs for the iPhone.

The App Store has also gained prominence for helping to create ‘rags to riches’ stories, where software developers who spent hours of their own time developing applications earned hundreds of thousands of dollars within weeks of their application’s launch.

Australia’s application development industry has grown, with companies such as OzPDA, MoGeneration and Firemint all experiencing success with their apps, reaching the top 10 category on the App Store either in Australia or overseas.

On July 23 SmartCompany will be hosting a special webinar called 20 mobile apps that will change your business (and your life!). Our editor James Thomson will be joined by leading Australian app designer Marc Edwards from Bjango, and SmartCompany’s tech reporter Patrick Stafford, to discuss the app market explosion and the best apps for entrepreneurs. As a special treat, everyone who registers for the webinar has the chance to win a 16GB iPhone 3GS thanks to our partner, Optus Business. Don’t miss it!