In an interview with Wall Street Journal, Apple’s CEO Steve Jobs revealed that more than 60 million applications have been download from the App Store since it was launched on 11th July. While most of those applications were free, Apple sold an average of $1 million a day in applications for a total of about $30 million in sales over the month. At the current pace Apple will sell $360 million worth of application in a year. It is very likely that the pace will increase, as Apple will launch the iPhone in around 50 more countries this year.
“This thing’s going to crest a half a billion soon,” jobs said. “Who knows, maybe it will be a $1 billion marketplace at some point in time. I’ve never seen anything like this in my career for software.”
Apple sees the App Store as a tool to differentiate its iPhone from other mobile phones offered. The company believes, applications will sell more iPhone and wireless-enabled iPod touch devices, enhancing the appeal of the products in the same way music sold through iTunes has made iPod more desirable.
Jim Goldman of CNBC summarizes what Apple has achieved by App Store, “Once again, Apple has seen the future, built a bridge to it, and is taking consumers along for the journey. It’s extraordinary that the company has once again seized on another electronic ecosystem, in much the same way iTunes didn’t so much as invent downloaded digital entertainment as it did re-invent it. And iPhone is the direct beneficiary of this ingenuity, proving once again that the deice isn’t merely a ‘smartphone,’ but Apple’s next-generation ‘platform.’”