A month after its launch the iPhone App Store is already on track to make its first $billion.
Launched just 1 month ago and predicted to be a $1billion earner in it's own right, Apple's iPhone App Store has exceeded all expectations.
Even Apple founder Steve Jobs is said to be shocked by its phenomenal success.
"I've never seen anything like this in my career for software," he enthused during an interview with the Wall Street Journal. "This thing's going to crest a half a billion, soon. Who knows, maybe it will be a $1 billion marketplace at some point in time."
Since its launch on 11th July over 60 million programs have so far been downloaded from the App Store. However, while Apple have acknowledged that the vast majority of these downloads are free, it is still said to be making over $1million a day from the deal; a figure that equates to a massive $365,000 over the next 12 months.
Coinciding with the global launch of the brand new iPhone 3G, the App Store currently has over 1,000 applications on offer.
The vast majority of these downloads are submitted by third party developers who take a 70%:30% revenue split with the electronics giant. While this means that Apple are only making enough from the deal to cover the cost of running the store, Jobs has acknowledged that this is all part of their wider strategy.
On record as saying that "Going forward, the phone of the future will be differentiated by software" it's clear that Apple have been successful in capturing both the interest and imagination of the iPhone using public and software developers alike, leaving their potential competitors well and truly out in the cold.
While the App Store was designed for use with the new iPhone 3G, those who bought the first generation model won’t miss out. Apple have also developed software upgrades, available on their website, to enhance the capabilities of the original phone. These facilitate application downloads from the App Store among other things.
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