Apple Hits 50 Billion Apps Served

Billions and billions served. Image: Apple

Someone out there just won a $10,000 iTunes gift card, Apple’s way of saying “Thanks” for downloading its 50 billionth iOS app.

The Cupertino company announced today that 50 billion — that’s billion with a “b” — apps have been downloaded from the iTunes App Store. The 50 billionth app was Say the Same Thing by Space Inch, LLC, downloaded by Ohio resident Brandon Ashmore.

The last big milestone came in March 2012, when Chunli Fu of Qingdao, China, downloaded the 25 billionth app. To have doubled that figure in just 14 months is amazing and underscores the exponential growth the App Store has seen since its launch on July 10, 2008. It’s mind-blowing to realize that hitting today’s milestone means iOS users downloaded 28,248,587 apps every day. That’s like every person in Taiwan (Pop. 23,315,822) downloaded an app a day for more than four years.

The App Store has done more than make Apple the gatekeeper for everything that appears on its mobile products. It’s also been a huge moneymaker for Apple, which collects 30 percent of the revenue from its app store, which comes to about $3.86 billion since 2008.

Updated May 16th with information on the 50 billionth app