More Than 1 Billion iOS Apps Are Downloaded Each Month

At today’s Apple iPhone 5 event, Apple announced an update on the number of iPhone and iPad applications now available. There are more than 500,000 apps in the iTunes App Store, 140,000 of which have been built specifically for the iPad.

“That gives anyone who owns an iPad a better experience,” said Apple’s SVP of iOS software Scott Forstall. That makes the App Store the “number one store for mobile apps,” he added.

Apple customers have also downloaded 18 billion apps to date, at a rate of more than a billion per month. Yes, 1 billion!

That means both Apple and it’s developers are getting rich – Apple says now it has paid out $3 billion to third-party developers. That number is up from $1 billion in June, 2010.

The larger Apple’s app economy grows, the larger its devices will appeal to developers as a platform for their mobile apps. With a quarter billion iOS devices out there and growing, that is a huge market.

Image credit: Engadget