Steve Jobs: 60 million iPhone apps downloaded
It’s been a month since the iPhone 3G and the App Store made their debut, and Steve Jobs used the occasion to offer up some selected facts and figures:
- Users have now downloaded more than 60 million programs for the iPhone and iPod touch, or roughly 2 million per day.
- Revenue from those applications came to about $30 million. 70% went to the developers; Apple kept 30%. (Free apps apparently accounted for the vast majority of the downloads, since average revenue per download is 50 cents.)
- If sales continue at the current pace, Apple stands to clear at least $360 million a year. “This thing’s going to crest a half a billion, soon,” Jobs told the Wall Street Journal. “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.”
- Of the $21 million that developers cleared in the first month, roughly $9 million went to the creators of the top 10 best sellers. Sega Corp., for example, says it sold more than 300,000 copies of its $9.99 Super Monkeyball game in 20 days.
- Jobs believes a rich array of applications is what will distinguish the iPhone from competing cell phones. “Phone differentiation used to be about radios and antennas and things like that,” he told the Journal. “We think, going forward, the phone of the future will be differentiated by software.”
Apple had earlier reported that 10 million apps were downloaded in the first three days after launch. By July 21, that number had reached 25 million (see here). The latest number suggests that downloads have accelerated in the last 10 days, from July 21st’s 1.25 apps per day to the current 2 apps per day.
Relations between Apple (AAPL) and its developers have not been smooth, however (see Trouble in the App Store). Jobs commented on one of the hot-button issues: He confirmed that the iPhone operating system contains a kill switch that gives Apple the capability to reach into an iPhone (presumably during a sync operation) and remove a malicious application.
“Hopefully we never have to pull that lever, but we would be irresponsible not to have a lever like that to pull,” he said.
Separately, an Apple spokeswoman defended the decision to pull a program called I Am Rich, which cost $999.99 and did nothing but display the image of a ruby on the iPhone’s screen, off the App Store shelves. She characterized it as a “judgment call.”
Jobs did not use the occasion of the iPhone 3G’s one-month anniversary to report how many of the devices Apple has sold. He may be saving that number for another day — and another round of headlines.
[Fortune's Scott Moritz reported Monday that at least one analyst puts iPhone sales for the first month at 3 million units. See here.]
UPDATE: Gigaom’s Om Malik, who says he has downloaded three dozen apps but only likes four of them, adds some interesting data about how many of those 60 million apps are in active use. He cites research by New York-based Pinch Media, which reports that free downloads to paid downloads is about 10 to 1. Moreover:
“According to data collected by Pinch Media, on average, less than 20% of an application’s overall unique users return to an application each day. [CEO Greg] Yardley also pointed out that people are using the apps for just under five minutes at a time, on average. The majority only use the applications once per day – average number of uses per day is around 1.2.” (link)
@Bellingham –
I got one a week ago: my company pays for the AT&T plan (they don’t care whether I get an iPhone or a Blackberry) so I only had to pay for the device itself. I had push email working from day 1 – in fact, I get mail there even faster than Outlook on my Windows laptop. Calendars work seamlessly. Network reception decent – at least not worse than Verizon and the POS LG device I owned before…
Long story short, for every story of disappointment, there is a story of satisfaction. I would advise you to check your company’s Exchange server settings.
Finally a few days of good news with Apple resulting in a nice run up of the stock price. I bought the stock when it was $189 just before the 3G Iphone launch. It’s good to see it going back towards $200, where it should be based on it’s pipleline. The Apps store like a big winner for Apple. As app fees start to go up, so will the share of revenues to Apple.
hi,
i live in switzerland but internet is supposed to be global, specially for application that are free…. i cannot get the application from the us store. I have an iphone but i am disapointed by the lack of transparency of apple regarding its system with itunes, application and iphone.
Apple has no idea of internal menu of a phone.
cheers
G. Staehli
This is the “second wave” I saw coming a couple of months back. As news of the App Store circulates, it will drive more customers to the iPhone. By Christmas, the “third wave” will be in sight, and it could be a tidal wave.
But the real money will be in the new Apple customers for their other products, as new people come in to the Apple stores and get a gander.
I went to the Apple Store this weekend in Sacramento, and there was STILL a line out front to buy iPhones! Granted, it had shrunk to about 50 or so, but you also have to consider that the store itself was jammed with people. I understand they’ve increased the employment to 120 (they didn’t let anyone go after the Christmas buildup), and are still looking to hire another 20 or thirty.
Frankly, I think they’re going to have to consider knocking down a wall.
It’s funny that Apple seems to be focusing on “I Am Rich” as the malicious application to remove just because it’s expensive and worthless, although I hear the red ruby is pretty to look at. Actually it sounds like some other products that people sell. Thing is, I Am Rich is not malicious, it’s just stupid but a fool and his money are soon parted, so people will be dumb enough to buy it and thats their problem if they do. What Apple is doing is good ol’ fashion censorship.
Mark my words, Apple will be having alot more of these “judgment call”s in the future and fan boys can call it Apple protecting consumers but all Apple is really doing is proving they are about unprovoked censorship.
Good job Apple, I always thought the Constitution was bit out of date.
Pinch Media’s data is kind of unimportant. I think the amount of time an app is used on a daily basis is irrelevant. It doesn’t make it a good or bad app. Some of the apps are definitely crap, some are fantastic. An amazing app might only need to be run for a minute or two on a daily basis to keep you informed or whatever.
PED’s done a nice roundup and it seems some sources are trying to draw dire conclusions from benign data. That apps are only used once a day is not a measure of anything when you consider that lots of the apps are tip calculators or milage records. My apps include Bloomberg,OmniFocus (a GTD organizer), and Currency (rates). I only use these on the iPhone when traveling so my per day rate is low, but how often can a person want to compute a tip? I’d be more worried if Super Monkey Ball was used 20 times a day.
My iPhone along with 1000’s of other iPhones are nothing but a toy. It will not sync with Outlook no matter what I’ve tried. Many iPhone users have this same issue and let’s not get started with Mobile Me. As for the 3rd Party Applications available via Apple Store, many of these applications cause the phone to crash and freeze up.
My recommendation to anyone thinking about buying an iPhone; go to the iPhone Support site at apple.com and read the 1000’s of post from users with iPhone problems….do this before you buy an iPhone.
If you want a toy, the iPhone is your gaget. If you want a phone capable of managing your business contacts and calendar…find something else.
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Silicon Valley veterans like to joke that Steve Jobs must be surrounded by a reality distortion field; if you get too close to him, you start to believe what he's saying. Thanks to the success of the iPod, the launch of the iPhone and the renewed interest in the Mac, Apple has made believers out of millions of customers - and made a lot of investors rich. But Philip Elmer-DeWitt believes that an ounce of skepticism never hurts when writing about the company. He should know. He's been covering Apple - and watching Steve Jobs operate - since 1982, first for Time Magazine, then for Business 2.0, and now for Fortune.
There’s an excellent site for freelance iphone jobs and freelance developers. Check out:
iPhone Jobs