Apple App Downloads Hit 25 Billion

Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) released a report that says downloads from its App Store have reached 25 billion — about three times the population of the world. The figure skirts the issue of how many of these apps get used and how few are commercially successful.

By far, the most popular Apps are games, like Angry Birds. The Facebook app is a winner, too, along with Twitter. Those are followed by “productivity” apps like Skype and Google Maps, which allow people to make their lives easier — and perhaps less expensive. Media apps also do well. A lot of people download the iBook store app. Some of these apps get so many downloads that they make their designers millions of dollars or provide huge platforms in the emerging mobile environment.

Apple does not release data on which apps are the downloaded the most often. But it is plain that, of the hundreds of thousands of apps available, most rarely get downloaded at all. Many are never seen. The size of the App Store is just too large.

Apple presents the App Store as a sort of democracy. The applications that get the most “votes” win. The balance of the apps languish, sitting in a store where they never will be commercial successes.

So, of its 25 billion downloads, probably almost all are from just a few thousand apps. The software developers of the others might as well have not made the effort to get any business at all. But, hope springs eternal.

Douglas A. McIntyre