Apple's App Store Reaches 50 Billion Downloads, Now on Pace for 20 Billion Apps Per Year

Apple's App Store today reached 50 billion downloads since its inception in 2008, and along with the milestone comes the end of the company's "50 Billion App Countdown" promotion launched thirteen days ago. The winner of the promotion, who is yet to be announced, will be awarded a $10,000 gift card valid for App Store, Mac App Store, or any other iTunes Store content. Fifty additional winners will receive $500 gift cards.

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The milestone is being acknowledged on Apple's website with a graphic showing a "Thanks" message written using award-winning iPad app Paper by FiftyThree.

The App Store took nearly 3 years, 8 months to reach 25 billion downloads, with the next 25 billion downloads requiring only about 14.5 months.

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With the last 25 billion downloads coming over a period of 14.5 months, Apple's pace is now at over 20 billion downloads per year or over 50 million per day. As tracked by our sister site AppShopper, Apple has approved a total of nearly 1.2 million apps for the App Store since its launch, with nearly 850,000 of them currently available in the store.

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Top Rated Comments

gmanist1000 Avatar
150 months ago
Can't wait to see what the app was. I'm thinking Hangouts has a high chance....
Score: 9 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Shrink Avatar
150 months ago
Thank goodness that's over.

The excitement was just incredibly underwhelming.:rolleyes:
Score: 8 Votes (Like | Disagree)
MacDav Avatar
150 months ago
so who won?

You did...You're first on MacRumors. :p
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
ck2875 Avatar
150 months ago
Who else was in there at the last minute really gunning for it and downloading apps? I bet their traffic went up in the last 10 minutes!
To be fair, the official rules stated: "Any download counter displayed by Sponsor is for illustrative purposes only. The potential winners will be determined by the order of the entries received." so it's quite possible the winner downloaded their app any time before or after that counter struck 50,000,000,000.
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
MacDav Avatar
150 months ago
What is someone really gonna do with a $10,000 gift card to the app stores? Buy Angry Birds for 5.000 of their closest friends? :)

Well first I would buy all the Apple Pro software Final Cut Pro, Logic, etc.
After that the choices get a little more boring and difficult. :)
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
MacDav Avatar
150 months ago
I caought it on 50 billion hahahah :)
[url=http://i1282.photobucket.com/albums/a532/jamesjingyi/50000000000_zps522547ef.png]Image (http://s1282.photobucket.com/user/jamesjingyi/media/50000000000_zps522547ef.png.html)[/URL]

You life is now complete. :p
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)